Twain, Mark

The Chronicle of Young Satan

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Mark Twain

The Chronicle of Young Satan

Chapter 1

It was 1702 – May. Austria was far away from the world, and asleep; it was still the Middle Ages in Austria, and promised to remain so forever. Some even set it away back centuries upon centuries and said that by the mental and spiritual clock it was still the Age of Faith in Austria. But they meant it as a compliment, not a slur, and it was so taken, and we were all proud of it. I remember it well, although I was only a boy; and I remember, too, the pleasure it gave me.

Yes, Austria was far from the world, and asleep, and our village was in the middle of that sleep, being in the middle of Austria. It drowsed in peace in the deep privacy of a hilly and woodsy solitude where news from the world hardly ever came to disturb its dreams, and was infinitely content. At its front flowed the tranquil river, its surface painted with cloud-forms and the reflections of drifting arks and stone-boats; behind it rose the woody steeps to the base of the lofty precipice; from the top of the precipice frowned the vast castle, its long stretch of towers and bastions mailed in vines; beyond the river, to the left, was a tumbled expanse of forest-clothed hills cloven by winding gorges where the sun never penetrated; and to the right, lay a far-reaching plain dotted with little homesteads nested among orchards and shade-trees.

The whole region for leagues around was the hereditary property of a prince with a difficult name, whose servants kept the castle always in perfect condition for occupancy, but neither he nor his family came there oftener than once in five years. When they came it was as if the lord of the world had arrived, and had brought all the glories of its kingdoms along; and when they went they left a calm behind which was like the deep sleep which follows an orgy.

Eseldorf was a paradise for us boys. We were not overmuch pestered with schooling. Mainly we were trained to be good Catholics; to revere the Virgin, the Church and the saints above everything; to hold the Monarch in awful reverence, speak of him with bated breath, uncover before his picture, regard him as the gracious provider of our daily bread and of all our earthly blessings, and ourselves as being sent into the world with the one only mission, to labor for him, bleed for him, die for him, when necessary. Beyond these matters we were not required to know much; and in fact, not allowed to. The priests said that knowledge was not good for the common people, and could make them discontented with the lot which God had appointed for them, and God would not endure discontentment with His plans. This was true, for the priests got it of the Bishop.

It was discontentment that came so near to being the ruin of Gretel Marx the dairyman's widow, who had two horses and a cart, and carried milk to the market town. A Hussite woman named Adler came to Eseldorf and went slyly about, and began to persuade some of the ignorant and foolish to come privately by night to her house and hear ›God's real message,‹ as she called it. She was a cunning woman, and sought out only those few who could read – flattering them by saying it showed their intelligence, and that only the intelligent could understand her doctrine. She gradually got ten together, and these she poisoned nightly with her heresies in her house. And she gave them Bibles and hymn-books, to keep for their own, and persuaded them that it was no sin to read them.

One day Father Adolf came along and found the widow sitting in the shade of the horse-chestnut that stood by her house, reading these books. He was a very loud and zealous and strenuous priest, and was always working to get more reputation, hoping to be a Bishop some day; and he was always spying around and keeping a sharp lookout on other people's flocks as well as his own; and he was dissolute and profane and malicious, but otherwise a good enough man, it was generally thought. And he certainly had talent; he was a most fluent and chirpy speaker, and could say the cuttingest things and the wittiest, though a little coarse, maybe – however it was only his enemies who said that, and it really wasn't any truer of him than of others; but he belonged to the village council, and lorded it there, and played smart dodges that carried his projects through, and of course that nettled the others; and in their resentment they gave him nicknames privately, and called him the ›Town Bull,‹ and ›Hell's Delight,‹ and all sorts of things; which was natural, for when you are in politics you are in the wasp's nest with a short shirt-tail, as the saying is.

He was rolling along down the road, pretty full and feeling good, and braying »We'll sing the wine-cup and the lass« in his thundering bass, when he caught sight of the widow reading her book. He came to a stop before her and stood swaying there, leering down at her with his fishy eyes, and his purple fat face working and grimacing, and said –

»What is it you've got there, Frau Marx? What are you reading?«

She let him see. He bent down and took one glance, then he knocked the book out of her hand and said angrily –

»Burn them, burn them, you fool! Don't you know it's a sin to read them? Do you want to damn your soul? Where did you get them?«

She told him, and he said –

»By God I expected it. I will attend to that woman; I will make this place sultry for her. You go to her meetings, do you? What does she teach you – to worship the Virgin?«

»No – only God.«

»I thought it. You are on your road to hell. The Virgin will punish you for this – you mark my words.« Frau Marx was getting frightened; and was going to try to excuse herself for her conduct, but Father Adolf shut her up and went on storming at her and telling her what the Virgin would do with her, until she was ready to swoon with fear. She went on her knees and begged him to tell her what to do to appease the Virgin. He put a heavy penance on her, scolded her some more, then took up his song where he had left off, and went rolling and zigzagging away.

But Frau Marx fell again, within the week, and went back to Frau Adler's meeting one night. Just four days afterward both of her horses died! She flew to Father Adolf, full of repentance and despair, and cried and sobbed, and said she was ruined and must starve; for how could she market her milk now? What must she do? tell her what to do. He said –

»I told you the Virgin would punish you – didn't I tell you that? Hell's bells! did you think I was lying? You'll pay attention next time, I reckon.«

Then he told her what to do. She must have a picture of the horses painted, and walk on pilgrimage to the Church of Our Lady of the Dumb Creatures, and hang it up there, and make her offerings; then go home and sell the skins of her horses and buy a lottery ticket bearing the number of the date of their death, and then wait in patience for the Virgin's answer. In a week it came, when Frau Marx was almost perishing with despair – her ticket drew fifteen hundred ducats!

That is the way the Virgin rewards a real repentance. Frau Marx did not fall again. In her gratitude she went to those other women and told them her experience and showed them how sinful and foolish they were and how dangerously they were acting; and they all burned their books and returned repentant to the bosom of the Church, and Frau Adler had to carry her poisons to some other market. It was the best lesson and the wholesomest our village ever had. It never allowed another Hussite to come there; and for reward the Virgin watched over it and took care of it personally, and made it fortunate and prosperous always.

It was in conducting funerals that Father Adolf was at his best, if he hadn't too much of a load on, but only about enough to make him properly appreciate the sacredness of his office. It was fine to see him march his procession through the village, between the kneeling ranks, keeping one eye on the candles blinking yellow in the sun to see that the acolytes walked stiff and held them straight, and the other watching out for any dull oaf that might forget himself and stand staring and covered when the Host was carried past. He would snatch that oaf's broad hat from his head, hit him a staggering whack in the face with it and growl out in a low snarl –

»Where's your manners, you beast? – and the Lord God passing by!«

Whenever there was a suicide he was active. He was on hand to see that the government did its duty and turned the family out into the road, and confiscated its small belongings and didn't smouch any of the Church's share; and he was on hand again at midnight when the corpse was buried at the cross-roads – not to do any religious office, for of course that was not allowable – but to see, for himself, that the stake was driven through the body in a right and permanent and workmanlike way.

It was grand to see him make procession through the village in plague-time, with our saint's relics in their jeweled casket, and trade prayers and candles to the Virgin for her help in abolishing the pest.

And he was always on hand at the bridge-head on the 9th of December, at the Assuaging of the Devil. Ours was a beautiful and massive stone bridge of five arches, and was seven hundred years old. It was built by the Devil in a single night. The prior of the monastery hired him to do it, and had trouble to persuade him, for the Devil said he had built bridges for priests all over Europe, and had always got cheated out of his wages; and this was the last time he would trust a Christian if he got cheated now. Always before, when he built a bridge, he was to have for his pay the first passenger that crossed it – everybody knowing he meant a Christian, of course. But no matter, he didn't say it, so they always sent a jackass or a chicken or some other undamnable passenger across first, and so got the best of him. This time he said Christian, and wrote it in the bond himself, so there couldn't be any misunderstanding. And that isn't tradition, it is history, for I have seen that bond myself, many a time; it is always brought out on Assuaging Day, and goes to the bridge-head with the procession; and anybody who pays ten groschen can see it and get remission of thirty-three sins besides, times being easier for every one then than they are now, and sins much cheaper; so much cheaper that all except the very poorest could afford them. Those were good days, but they are gone and will not come any more, so every one says.

Yes, he put it in the bond, and the prior said he didn't want the bridge built yet, but would soon appoint a day – perhaps in about a week. There was an old monk wavering along between life and death, and the prior told the watchers to keep a sharp eye out and let him know as soon as they saw that the monk was actually dying. Towards midnight the 9th of December the watchers brought him word, and he summoned the Devil and the bridge was begun. All the rest of the night the prior and the Brotherhood sat up and prayed that the dying one might be given strength to rise up and walk across the bridge at dawn – strength enough, but not too much. The prayer was heard, and it made great excitement in heaven; insomuch that all the heavenly host got up before dawn and came down to see; and there they were, clouds and clouds of angels filling all the air above the bridge; and the dying monk tottered across, and just had strength to get over; then he fell dead just as the Devil was reaching for him, and as his soul escaped the angels swooped down and caught it and flew up to heaven with it, laughing and jeering, and Satan found he hadn't anything but a useless carcase.

He was very angry, and charged the prior with cheating him, and said »this isn't a Christian,« but the prior said »Yes it is, it's a dead one.« Then the prior and all the monks went through with a great lot of mock ceremonies, pretending it was to assuage the Devil and reconcile him, but really it was only to make fun of him and stir up his bile more than ever. So at last he gave them all a solid good cursing, they laughing at him all the time. Then he raised a black storm of thunder and lightning and wind and flew away in it; and as he went the spike on the end of his tail caught on a capstone and tore it away; and there it always lay, throughout the centuries, as proof of what he had done. I have seen it myself, a thousand times. Such things speak louder than written records; for written records can lie, unless they are set down by a priest. The mock Assuaging is repeated every 9th of December, to this day, in memory of that holy thought of the prior's which rescued an imperiled Christian soul from the odious Enemy of mankind.

There have been better priests, in some ways, than Father Adolf, for he had his failings, but there was never one in our commune who was held in more solemn and awful respect. This was because he had absolutely no fear of the Devil. He was the only person I have ever known of whom that could be truly said. People stood in deep dread of him, on that account; for they thought there must be something supernatural about him, else he could not be so bold and so confident. All men speak in bitter disapproval of the Devil, but they do it reverently, not flippantly; but Father Adolf's way was very different; he called him by every vile and putrid name he could lay his tongue to, and it made every one shudder that heard him; and often he would even speak of him scornfully and scoffingly; then the people crossed themselves and went quickly out of his presence, fearing that something fearful might happen; and this was natural, for after all is said and done Satan is a sacred character, being mentioned in the Bible, and it cannot be proper to utter lightly the sacred names, lest heaven itself should resent it.

Father Adolf had actually met Satan face to face, more than once, and defied him. This was known to be so. Father Adolf said it himself. He never made any secret of it, but spoke it right out. And that he was speaking true, there was proof, in at least one instance; for on that occasion he quarreled with the Enemy, and intrepidly threw his inkstand at him, and there, upon the wall of his study was the black splotch where it struck and broke. The same was claimed for Luther, but no one believed it, for he was a heretic and liar. This was so, for the Pope himself said that Luther had lied about it.

The priest that we all loved best and were sorriest for, was Father Peter. But the Bishop suspended him for talking around in conversation that God was all goodness and would find a way to save all his poor human children. It was a horrible thing to say, but there was never any absolute proof that Father Peter said it; and it was out of character for him to say it, too, for he was always good and gentle and truthful, and a good Catholic, and always teaching in the pulpit just what the Church required, and nothing else. But there it was, you see: he wasn't charged with saying it in the pulpit, where all the congregation could hear and testify, but only outside, in talk; and it is easy for enemies to manufacture that. Father Peter denied it; but no matter, Father Adolf wanted his place, and he told the Bishop, and swore to it, that he overheard Father Peter say it; heard Father Peter say it to his niece, when Father Adolf was behind the door listening – for he was suspicious of Father Peter's soundness, he said, and the interests of religion required that he be watched.

The niece, Marget, denied it, and implored the Bishop to believe her and spare her old uncle from poverty and disgrace; but Father Adolf had been poisoning the Bishop against the old man a long time privately, and he wouldn't listen; for he had a deep admiration of Father Adolf's bravery toward the Devil, and an awe of him on account of his having met the Devil face to face; and so he was a slave to Father Adolf's influence. He suspended Father Peter, indefinitely, though he wouldn't go so far as to excommunicate him on the evidence of only one witness; and now Father Peter had been out a couple of years, and Father Adolf had his flock.

Those had been hard years for the old priest and Marget. They had been favorites, but of course that changed when they came under the shadow of the Bishop's frown. Many of their friends fell away entirely, and the rest became cool and distant. Marget was a lovely girl of eighteen, when the trouble came, and she had the best head in the village, and the most in it. She taught the spinet, and earned all her clothes and pocket money by her own industry. But her scholars fell off one by one, now; she was forgotten when there were dances and parties among the youth of the village; the young fellows stopped coming to the house, all except Wilhelm Meidling – and he could have been spared; she and her uncle were sad and forlorn in their neglect and disgrace, and the sunshine was gone out of their lives. Matters went worse and worse, all through the two years. Clothes were wearing out, bread was harder and harder to get. And now at last, the very end was come. Solomon Isaacs had lent all the money he was willing to put on the house, and gave notice that to-morrow he should foreclose.

Chapter 2

Three of us boys were always together, and had been so from the cradle, being fond of each other from the beginning, and this affection deepening as the years went on – Nikolaus Baumann, son of the principal judge of the local court; Seppi Wohlmeyer, son of the keeper of the principal inn, the ›Golden Stag,‹ which had a nice garden, with shade trees, reaching down to the river-side, and pleasure-boats for hire; and I was the third – Theodor Fischer, son of the church organist, who was also leader of the village band, teacher of the violin, composer, tax collector of the commune, sexton, and in other ways a useful citizen and respected by all. We knew the hills and the woods as well as the birds knew them; for we were always roaming them when we had leisure – at least when we were not swimming or boating or fishing, or playing on the ice or sliding down hill.

And we had the run of the castle park, and very few had that. It was because we were pets of the oldest serving-man in the castle – Felix Brandt; and often we went there, nights, to hear him talk about old times and strange things, and smoke with him (he taught us that), and drink coffee; for he had served in the wars, and was at the siege of Vienna; and there, when the Turks were defeated and driven away, among the captured things were bags of coffee, and the Turkish prisoners explained the character of it and how to make a pleasant drink out of it, and now he always kept coffee by him, to drink himself, and also to astonish the ignorant with. When it stormed he kept us all night; and while it thundered and lightened outside he told about ghosts and horrors of every kind, and of battles and murders and mutilations, and such things, and made it pleasant and cosy inside; and he told these things from his own experience largely. He had seen many ghosts in his time, and witches and enchanters, and once he was lost in a fierce storm at midnight in the mountains, and by the glare of the lightning had seen the Wild Huntsman rage by on the blast with his spectre dogs chasing after him through the driving cloud-rack. Also he had seen an incubus once, and several times he had seen the great bat that sucks the blood from the necks of people while they are asleep, fanning them softly with its wings and so keeping them drowsy till they die. He encouraged us not to fear supernatural things, such as ghosts, and said they did no harm, but only wandered about because they were lonely and distressed and wanted kindly notice and compassion; and in time we learned to not be afraid, and even went down with him in the night to the haunted chamber in the dungeons of the castle. The ghost appeared only once, and it went by very dim to the sight and floating noiseless through the air, and then disappeared; and we scarcely trembled, he had taught us so well. He said it came up sometimes in the night and woke him up by passing its clammy hand over his face, but it did him no hurt, it only wanted sympathy and notice. But the strangest thing was, that he had seen angels; actual angels out of heaven, and had talked with them. They had no wings, and wore clothes, and talked and looked and acted just like any natural person, and you would never know them for angels, except for the wonderful things they did which a mortal could not do, and the way they suddenly disappeared while you were talking with them, which was also a thing which no mortal could do. And he said they were pleasant and cheerful, not gloomy and melancholy, like ghosts.

It was after that kind of a talk, one May night, that we got up next morning and had a good breakfast with him and then went down and crossed the bridge and went away up into the hills on the left to a woody hill-top which was a favorite place of ours, and there we stretched out on the grass in the shade to rest and smoke and talk over those strange things, for they were in our minds yet, and impressing us. But we couldn't smoke, because we had been heedless and left our flint and steel behind.

Soon there came a youth strolling towards us through the trees, and he sat down and began to talk in a friendly way, just as if he knew us. But we did not answer him, for he was a stranger and we were not used to strangers and were shy of them. He had new and good clothes on, and was handsome and had a winning face and a pleasant voice, and was easy and graceful and unembarrassed, not slouchy and awkward and diffident like other boys. We wanted to be friendly with him, but didn't know how to begin. Then I thought of the pipe, and wondered if it would be taken as kindly meant if I offered it to him. But I remembered that we had no fire; so I was sorry and disappointed. But he looked up bright and pleased, and said –

»Fire? Oh, that is easy – I will furnish it.«

I was so astonished I couldn't speak; for I had not said anything. He took the pipe and blew his breath on it, and the tobacco glowed red and spirals of blue smoke rose up. We jumped up and were going to run, for that was natural; and we did run a few steps, although he was yearningly pleading for us to stay, and giving us his word that he would not do us any harm, but only wanted to be friends with us and have company. So we stopped and stood, and wanted to go back, being full of curiosity and wonder, but afraid to venture. He went on coaxing, in his soft persuasive way; and when we saw that the pipe did not blow up and nothing happened, our confidence returned by little and little, and presently our curiosity got to be stronger than our fear, and we ventured back – but slowly, and ready to fly, at any alarm.

He was bent on putting us at ease, and he had the right art; one could not remain timorous and doubtful where a person was so earnest and simple and gentle and talked so alluringly as he did; no, he won us over, and it was not long before we were content and comfortable and chatty, and glad we had found this new friend. When the feeling of constraint was all gone, we asked him how he had learned to do that strange thing, and he said he hadn't learned it at all, it came natural to him – like other things – other curious things.

»What ones?«

»Oh, a number; I don't know how many.«

»Will you let us see you do them?«

»Do – please!« the others said.

»You won't run away again?«

»No – indeed we won't. Please do, won't you?«

»Yes, with pleasure; but you mustn't forget your promise, you know.«

We said we wouldn't, and he went to a puddle and came back with water in a cup which he had made out of a leaf, and blew upon it and threw it out, and it was a lump of ice, the shape of the cup. We were astonished and charmed, but not afraid any more; we were very glad to be there, and asked him to go on and do some more things. And he did. He said he would give us any kind of fruit we liked, whether it was in season or not. We all spoke at once –

»Orange!«

»Apple!«

»Grapes!«

»They are in your pockets,« he said, and it was true. And they were of the best, too, and we ate them and wished we had more, though none of us said so.

»You will find them where those came from,« he said, »and everything else your appetites call for; and you need not name the thing you wish; as long as I am with you, you have only to wish and find.«

And he said true. There was never anything so wonderful and so interesting. Bread, cakes, sweets, nuts – whatever one wanted, it was there. He ate nothing himself, but sat and chatted, and did one curious thing after another to amuse us. He made a toy squirrel out of clay, and it ran up a tree and sat on a limb overhead and barked down at us. Then he made a dog that was not much larger than a mouse, and it treed the squirrel and danced about the tree, excited and barking, and was as alive as any dog could be. It frightened the squirrel from tree to tree and followed it up until both were out of sight in the forest. He made birds out of clay and set them free and they flew away singing.

At last I made bold to ask him to tell us who he was.

»An angel,« he said, quite simply, and set another clay bird free and clapped his hands and made it fly away.

A kind of awe fell upon us when we heard him say that, and we were afraid again; but he said we need not be troubled, there was no occasion for us to be afraid of an angel, and he liked us anyway. He went on chatting as simply and unaffectedly as ever; and while he talked he made a crowd of little men and women the size of your finger, and they went diligently to work and cleared and leveled off a space a couple of yards square in the grass and began to build a cunning little castle in it, the women mixing the mortar and carrying it up the scaffoldings in pails on their heads, just as our work-women have always done, and the men laying the courses of masonry – five hundred of those toy people swarming briskly about and working diligently and wiping the sweat off their faces as natural as life. In the absorbing interest of watching those five hundred little people make the castle grow step by step and course by course and take shape and symmetry, that feeling of awe soon passed away, and we were quite comfortable and at home again. We asked if we might make some people, and he said yes, and told Seppi to make some cannon for the walls, and told Nikolaus to make some halberdiers with breastplates and greaves and helmets, and I was to make some cavalry, with horses; and in allotting these tasks he called us by our names, but did not say how he knew them. Then Seppi asked him what his own name was, and he said tranquilly –

»Satan,« and held out a chip and caught a little woman on it who was falling from the scaffolding and put her back where she belonged, and said »she is an idiot to step backward like that and not notice what she is about.«

It caught us suddenly, that name did, and our work dropped out of our hands and broke to pieces – a cannon, a halberdier and a horse. Satan laughed, and asked what was the matter. It was a natural laugh, and pleasant and sociable, not boisterous, and had a reassuring influence upon us; so I said there was nothing much the matter, only it seemed a strange name for an angel. He asked why.

»Because it's – it's – well, it's his name, you know.«

»Yes – he is my uncle.«

He said it placidly, but it took our breath, for a moment, and made our hearts beat hard. He did not seem to notice that, but partly mended our halberdiers and things with a touch, handed them to us to finish, and said –

»Don't you remember? – he was an angel himself once.«

»Yes – it's true,« said Seppi, »I didn't think of that.«

»Before the Fall he was blameless.«

»Yes,« said Nikolaus, »he was without sin.«

»It is a good family – ours,« said Satan; »there is not a better. He is the only member of it that has ever sinned.«

I should not be able to make any one understand how exciting it all was. You know that kind of quiver that trembles around through you when you are seeing something that is so strange and enchanting and wonderful that it is just a fearful joy to be alive and look at it; and you know how you gaze, and your lips turn dry and your breath comes short, but you wouldn't be anywhere but there, not for the world. I was bursting to ask one question – I had it on my tongue's end and could hardly hold it back – but I was ashamed to ask it, it might be a rudeness. Satan set an ox down that he had been making, and smiled up at me and said –

»It wouldn't be a rudeness; and I should forgive it if it was. Have I seen him? Millions of times. From the time that I was a little child a thousand years old I was his second-best favorite among the nursery-angels of our blood and lineage – to use a human phrase – yes, from that time till the Fall; eight thousand years, measured as you count time.«

»Eight – thousand?«

»Yes.« He turned to Seppi, and went on as if answering something that was in Seppi's mind, »Why, naturally I look like a boy, for that is what I am. With us, what you call time is a spacious thing; it takes a long stretch of it to grow an angel to full age.« There was a question in my mind, and he turned to me and answered it: »I am sixteen thousand years old – counting as you count.« Then he turned to Nikolaus and said, »No, the Fall did not affect me nor the rest of the relationship. It was only he that I was named for who ate of the fruit of the tree and then beguiled the man and the woman with it. We others are still ignorant of sin; we are not able to commit it; we are without blemish, and shall abide in that estate always. We –« Two of the little workmen were quarreling, and in buzzing little bumble-bee voices they were cursing and swearing at each other; now came blows and blood, then they locked themselves together in a life-and-death struggle. Satan reached out his hand and crushed the life out of them with his fingers, threw them away, wiped the red from his fingers on his handkerchief and went on talking where he had left off: »We cannot do wrong; neither have we any disposition to do it, for we do not know what it is.«

It seemed a strange speech, in the circumstances, but we barely noticed that, we were so shocked and grieved at the wanton murder he had committed – for murder it was, it was its true name, and it was without palliation or excuse, for the men had not wronged him in any way. It made us miserable; for we loved him, and had thought him so noble and beautiful and gracious, and had honestly believed he was an angel; and to have him do this cruel thing – ah, it lowered him so, and we had had such pride in him. He went right on talking, just as if nothing had happened: telling about his travels, and the interesting things he had seen in the big worlds of our solar system and of other solar systems far away in the remotenesses of space, and about the customs of the immortals that inhabit them, somehow fascinating us, enchanting us, charming us in spite of the pitiful scene that was now under our eyes: for the wives of the little dead men had found the crushed and shapeless bodies and were crying over them and sobbing and lamenting, and a priest was kneeling there with his hands crossed upon his breast praying, and crowds and crowds of pitying friends were massed about them, reverently uncovered, with their bare heads bowed, and many with the tears running down – a scene which Satan paid no attention to until the small noise of the weeping and praying began to annoy him, then he reached out and took the heavy board seat out of our swing and brought it down and mashed all those people into the earth just as if they had been flies, and went on talking just the same.

An angel, and kill a priest! an angel who did not know how to do wrong, and yet destroys in cold blood a hundred helpless poor men and women who had never done him any harm! It made us sick to see that awful deed, and to think that none of those poor creatures was prepared except the priest, for none of them had ever heard a mass or seen a church. And we were witnesses; we could not get away from that thought; we had seen these murders done and it was our duty to tell, and let the law take its course.

But he went talking right along, and worked his enchantments upon us again with that fatal music of his voice. He made us forget everything; we could only listen to him, and love him and be his slaves, to do with as he would. He made us drunk with the joy of being with him, and of looking into the heaven of his eyes, and of feeling the ecstasy that thrilled along our veins from the touch of his hand.

He had seen everything, he had been everywhere, he knew everything, and he forgot nothing. What another must study, he learned at a glance; there were no difficulties for him. And he made things live before you when he told about them. He saw the world made; he saw Adam created; he saw Samson surge against the pillars and bring the temple down in ruins about him; he saw Caesar's death; he told of the daily life in heaven, he had seen the damned writhing in the red waves of hell; and he made us see all these things, and it was as if we were on the spot and looking at them with our own eyes. And we felt them, too, but there was no sign that they were anything to him, beyond being mere entertainments. Those visions of hell, those poor babes and women and girls and lads and men shrieking and supplicating in anguish – why, we could hardly bear it, but he was as bland about it as if it had been so many imitation rats in an artificial fire.

And always when he was talking about men and women here in the earth and their doings – even their grandest and sublimest – we were secretly ashamed, for his manner showed that to him they and their doings were of paltry poor consequence; often you would think he was talking about flies, if you didn't know. Once he even said, in so many words, that our people down here were quite interesting to him, notwithstanding they were so dull and ignorant and trivial and conceited, and so diseased and rickety, and such a shabby poor worthless lot all around. He said it in a quite matter-of-course way and without any bitterness, just as a person might talk about bricks or manure or any other thing that was of no consequence and hadn't feelings. I could see he meant no offence, but in my thoughts I set it down as not very good manners.

»Manners!« he said, »why it is merely the truth, and truth is good manners; manners are a fiction. The castle is done! Do you like it?«

Any one would have been obliged to like it. It was lovely to look at, it was so shapely and fine, and so cunningly perfect in all its particulars, even to the little flags waving from the turrets. Satan said we must put the artillery in place, now, and station the halberdiers and deploy the cavalry. Our men and horses were a spectacle to see, they were so little like what they were intended for; for of course we had no art in making such things. Satan said they were the worst he had seen; and when he touched them and made them alive, it was just ridiculous the way they acted, on account of their legs not being of uniform lengths. They reeled and sprawled around as if they were drunk, and endangered everybody's lives around them, and finally fell over and lay helpless and kicking. It made us all laugh, though it was a shameful thing to see. The guns were charged with dirt, to fire a salute; but they were so crooked and so badly made that they all burst when they went off, and killed some of the gunners and crippled the others. Satan said we would have a storm, now, and an earthquake, if we liked, but we must stand off a piece, out of danger. We wanted to call the people away, too, but he said never mind them, they were of no consequence and we could make more, some time or other if we needed them.

A small storm-cloud began to settle down black over the castle, and the miniature lightning and thunder began to play and the ground to quiver and the wind to pipe and wheeze and the rain to fall, and all the people flocked into the castle for shelter. The cloud settled down blacker and blacker and one could see the castle only dimly through it; the lightnings blazed out flash upon flash and they pierced the castle and set it on fire and the flames shone out red and fierce through the cloud, and the people came flying out, shrieking, but Satan brushed them back, paying no attention to our begging and crying and imploring; and in the midst of the howling of the wind and volleying of the thunder the magazine blew up, the earthquake rent the ground wide and the castle's wreck and ruin tumbled into the chasm, which swallowed it from sight and closed upon it, with all that innocent life, not one of the five hundred poor creatures escaping.

Our hearts were broken, we could not keep from crying.

»Don't cry,« Satan said, »they were of no value.«

»But they are gone to hell!«

»Oh, it is no matter, we can make more.«

It was of no use to try to move him; evidently he was wholly without feeling, and could not understand. He was full of bubbling spirits, and as gay as if this were a wedding instead of a fiendish massacre. And he was bent on making us feel as he did, and of course his magic accomplished his desire. It was no trouble to him, he did whatever he pleased with us. In a little while we were dancing on that grave, and he was playing to us on a strange sweet instrument which he took out of his pocket; and the music – there is no music like that, unless perhaps in heaven, and that was where he brought it from, he said. It made one mad, for pleasure; and we could not take our eyes from him, and the looks that went out of our eyes came from our hearts, and their dumb speech was worship. He brought the dance from heaven, too, and the bliss of paradise was in it.

Presently he said he must go away on an errand. But we could not bear the thought of it, and clung to him, and pleaded with him to stay; and that pleased him, and he said so; and said he would not go yet, but would wait a little while and we would sit down and talk a few minutes longer; and he told us Satan was only his real name and he was to be known by it to us alone, but he had chosen another one to be called by in presence of others; just a common one, such as people have – Philip Traum.

It sounded so odd and mean for such a being! But it was his decision, and we said nothing; his decision was sufficient.

We had seen wonders this day; and my thoughts began to run on the pleasure it would be to tell of them when I got home; but he noticed those thoughts, and said –

»No, all these matters are a secret between us four. I do not mind your trying to tell them, if you like, but I will protect your tongues, and nothing of the secret will escape from them.«

It was a disappointment, but it couldn't be helped, and it cost us a sigh or two. We talked pleasantly along, and he was always reading our thoughts and responding to them, and it seemed to me that this was the most wonderful of all the things he did; but he interrupted my musings, and said –

»No, it would be wonderful for you, but it is not wonderful for me. I am not limited, like you. I am not subject to human conditions; I can measure and understand your human weaknesses, for I have studied them; but I have none of them. My flesh is not real, although it is firm to the touch, my clothes are not real, I am a spirit. Father Peter is coming.« We looked around, but did not see any one. »He is not in sight yet, but you will see him presently.«

»Do you know him, Satan?«

»No.«

»Won't you talk with him when he comes? He is not ignorant and dull, like us, and he would so like to talk with you. Will you?«

»Another time, yes, but not now. I must go on my errand after a little. There he is; now you can see him. Sit still, and don't say anything.«

We looked up and saw Father Peter approaching through the chestnuts. We three were sitting together in the grass, and Satan sat in front of us in the path. Father Peter came slowly along with his head down, thinking, and stopped within a couple of yards of us and took off his hat and got out his silk handkerchief and stood there mopping his face and looking as if he was going to speak to us, but he didn't. Presently he muttered, »I can't think what brought me here; it seems as if I was in my study a minute ago – but I suppose I have been dreaming along for an hour and have come all this stretch without noticing; for I am not myself in these troubled days.« Then he went mumbling along to himself and walked straight through Satan, just as if nothing was there. It made us catch our breath to see it. We had the impulse to cry out, the way you nearly always do when a startling thing happens, but something mysteriously restrained us and we remained quiet, only breathing fast. Then the trees hid Father Peter after a little, and Satan said –

»It is as I told you – I am only a spirit.«

»Yes, one perceives it now,« said Nikolaus, »but we are not spirits. It is plain he did not see you, but were we invisible too? He looked at us, but he didn't seem to see us.«

»No, none of us was visible to him, for I wished it so.«

It seemed almost too good to be true, that we were actually seeing these romantic and wonderful things, and that it was not a dream. And there he sat, looking just like anybody – so natural, and simple, and charming, and chatting along again the same as ever, and – well, words cannot make you understand what we felt. It was an ecstasy; and an ecstasy is a thing that will not go into words; it feels like music, and one cannot tell about music so that another person can get the feeling of it. He was back in the old ages once more, now, and making them live before us. He had seen so much, so much! It was just a wonder to look at him and try to think how it must seem to have such experiences behind one.

But it made you seem sorrowfully trivial, and the creature of a day, and such a short and paltry day, too. And he didn't say anything to raise up your drooping pride any – no, not a word. He always spoke of men in the same old indifferent way – just as one speaks of bricks and manure-piles and such things; you could see that they were of no consequence to him, one way or the other. He didn't mean to hurt us, you could see that; just as we don't mean to insult a brick when we disparage it; a brick's emotions are nothing to us; it never occurs to us to think whether it has any or not.

Once when he was bunching the most illustrious kings and conquerors and poets and prophets and pirates and beggars together – just a brick-pile – I was shamed into putting in a word for man, and asked him why he made so much difference between men and himself. He had to struggle with that a moment; he didn't seem to understand how I could ask such a strange question. Then he said –

»The difference between man and me? The difference between a mortal and an immortal? between a clod and a spirit?« He picked up a wood-louse that was creeping along a piece of bark: »What is the difference between Homer and this? between Caesar and this?«

I said –

»One cannot compare things which by their nature and by the interval between them are not comparable.«

»You have answered your own question,« he said. »I will expand it. Man is made of dirt – I saw him made. I am not made of dirt. Man is a museum of disgusting diseases, a home of impurities; he comes to-day and is gone to-morrow, he begins as dirt and departs as a stench; I am of the aristocracy of the Imperishables. And man has the Moral Sense. You understand? he has the Moral Sense. That would seem to be difference enough between us, all by itself.«

He stopped there, as if that settled the matter. I was sorry, for at that time I had put a dim idea of what the moral sense was. I merely knew that we were proud of having it, and when he talked like that about it it wounded me and I felt as a girl feels who thinks her dearest finery is being admired, and then overhears strangers making fun of it. For a while we were all silent, and I, for one, was depressed. Then Satan began to chat again, and soon he was sparkling along in such a cheerful and vivacious vein that my spirits rose once more. He told some very cunning things that put us in a gale of laughter; and when he was telling about the time that Samson tied the torches to the foxes' tails and set them loose in the Philistines' corn and was sitting on the fence slapping his thighs and laughing, with the tears running down his cheeks, and lost his balance and fell off the fence, the memory of that picture got him to laughing, too, and we did have a most lovely and jolly time. By and by he said –

»I am going on my errand, now.«

»Don't!« we all said, »don't go; stay with us. You won't come back.«

»Yes, I will, I give you my word.«

»When? To-night? To-morrow? Say when?«

»It won't be long. You will see.«

»We like you.«

»And I you. And as a proof of it I will show you something fine to see. Usually when I go, I merely vanish; but now I will dissolve myself and let you see me do it.«

He stood up, and it was quickly finished. He thinned away and thinned away until he was a soap-bubble, except that he kept his shape. You could see the bushes through him as clearly as you see things through a soap-bubble, and all over him played and flashed the delicate iridescent colors of the bubble, and along with them was that thing shaped like a window-sash which you always see on the globe of the bubble. You have seen a bubble strike the carpet and lightly bound along two or three times before it bursts. He did that. He sprang – touched the grass – bounded – floated along – touched again – and so on, and presently exploded, – puff! and in his place was vacancy.

It was a strange and beautiful thing to see. We did not say anything, but sat wondering, and dreaming, and blinking; and finally Seppi roused up and said, mournfully and sighing –

»I reckon none of it has happened.«

Nikolaus sighed and said about the same.

I was miserable to hear them say it, for it was the same cold fear that was in my own mind. Then we saw poor old Father Peter wandering along back, with his head bent down, searching the ground. When he was pretty close to us he looked up and saw us, and said –

»How long have you been here, boys?«

»A little while, Father.«

»Then it is since I came by, and maybe you can help me. Did you come up by the path?«

»Yes, Father.«

»That is good. I came the same way. I have lost my wallet. There wasn't much in it, but a very little is much to me, for it was all I had. I suppose you haven't seen anything of it?«

»No, Father, but we will help you hunt.«

»It is what I was going to ask of you. Why, here it is!«

We hadn't noticed it; yet there it lay, right where Satan stood when he began to melt – if he did melt, and it wasn't a delusion. Father Peter picked it up, and looked very much surprised.

»It is mine,« he said, »but not the contents. This is fat; mine was flat; mine was light, this is heavy.«

He opened it; it was stuffed as full as it could hold, with gold coins. He let us gaze our fill; and of course we did gaze, for we had never seen so much money at one time before. All our mouths came open to say »Satan did it!« but nothing came out. There it was, you see – we couldn't tell what Satan didn't want told; he had said so himself.

»Boys, did you do this?«

It made us laugh. And it made him laugh, too, as soon as he thought what a foolish question it was.

»Who has been here?«

Our mouths came open to answer, but stood so for a moment, because we couldn't say »nobody,« for it wouldn't be so, and the right word didn't seem to come; then I thought of the right one, and said it –

»Not a human being.«

»That is so,« said the others, and let their mouths go shut.

»It is not so,« said Father Peter, and looked at us very severely. »I came by here a while ago, and there was no one here, but that is nothing; some one has been here since. I don't mean to say that the person didn't pass here before you came, and I don't mean to say you saw him, but some one did pass, that I know. On your honor – you saw no one?«

»Not a human being.«

»That is sufficient; I know you are telling me the truth.«

He began to count the money on the path, we on our knees eagerly helping to stack it in little piles.

»It's eleven hundred ducats-odd!« he said, »oh, dear, if it were only mine – and I need it so!« and his voice broke and his lips quivered.

»It is yours, sir!« we all cried out at once, »every heller!«

»No – it isn't mine. Only four ducats are mine; the rest....«

He fell to dreaming, poor old soul, and caressing some of the coins in his hands, and forgot where he was, sitting there on his heels with his old gray head bare, and it was pitiful to see.

»No,« he said, waking up, »it isn't mine. I can't account for it. I think some enemy... it must be a trap.«

Nikolaus said –

»Father Peter, with the exception of Father Adolf you haven't a real enemy in the village – nor Marget, either. And not even a half enemy that's rich enough to chance eleven hundred ducats at one dash to do you a mean turn. I'll ask you if that's so, or not?«

He couldn't get around that argument, and it cheered him up.

»But it isn't mine, you see – it isn't mine, in any case.«

He said it in a wistful way, like a person that wouldn't be sorry, but glad, if somebody would contradict him.

»It is yours, Father Peter, and we are witness to it – aren't we, boys?«

»Yes, we are – and we'll stand by it, too.«

»Bless your hearts, you do almost persuade me, you do, indeed. If I had only a hundred and eighty ducats of it! The house is mortgaged for it, and we've no home for our heads if we don't pay to-morrow. And that four ducats is all we've got in the –«

»It's yours, every bit of it, and you've got to take it – we are bail that it's all right, aren't we Theodor? aren't we Seppi?«

We two said yes; and Nikolaus stuffed the money back into the shabby old wallet and made the owner take it. So he said he would use two hundred of it, for his house was good enough security for that, and would put the rest at interest till the rightful owner came for it; and on our side we must sign a paper showing how he got the money – a paper to show to the villagers as proof that he had not got out of his troubles dishonestly.

Chapter 3

It made immense talk next day, when Father Peter paid Solomon Isaacs in gold and left the rest of the money with him at interest. Also, there was a pleasant change: many people called at the house to congratulate, and a number of cool old friends became kind and friendly again; and to top all, Marget was invited to a party.

And there was no mystery; Father Peter told the whole circumstance just as it happened, and said he could not account for it, only it was the plain hand of Providence, so far as he could see. One or two shook their heads and said privately it looked more like the hand of Satan; and really that seemed a surprisingly good guess for ignorant people like that. Some came slyly buzzing around and tried to coax us boys to come out and ›tell the truth;‹ and promised they wouldn't ever tell, but only wanted to know for their own satisfaction, because the whole thing was so curious. They even wanted to buy the secret, and pay money for it; and if we could have invented something that would answer – but we couldn't; we hadn't the ingenuity, so we had to let the chance go by, and it was a pity.

We carried that secret around without any trouble, but the other one, the big one, the splendid one, burnt the very vitals of us, it was so hot to get out and we so hot to let it out and astonish people with it. But we had to keep it in; in fact it kept itself in: Satan said it would, and it did. We went off every day and got to ourselves in the woods, so that we could talk about Satan, and really that was the only subject we thought of or cared anything about; and day and night we watched for him and hoped he would come, and we got more and more impatient all the time. We hadn't any interest in the other boys any more and wouldn't take part in their games and enterprises. That kind of boys seemed so tame, after Satan; and their doings so trifling and commonplace after his adventures in antiquity and the constellations, and his miracles and meltings and explosions and all that.

During the first day we were in a state of anxiety, on account of one thing, and we kept going to Father Peter's house on one pretext or another, to keep track of it. That was the gold coin; we were afraid it would crumble and turn to dirt, like fairy money. If it did... but it didn't. At the end of the day no complaint had been made about it; so after that we were satisfied that it was real gold, and dropped the anxiety out of our minds.

There was a question which we wanted to ask Father Peter, and finally we went there the second evening, a little diffidently, after drawing straws, and I asked it, as casually as I could, though it did not sound as casual as I wanted, because I did not know how –

»What is the moral sense, sir?«

He looked down surprised, over his great spectacles, and said –

»Why, it is the faculty which enables us to distinguish good from evil.«

It threw some light, but not a glare, and I was a little disappointed, also in some degree embarrassed. He was waiting for me to go on; so, in default of anything else to say, I asked –

»Is it valuable?«

»Valuable! Heavens, lad, it is the one thing that lifts man above the beasts that perish and makes him heir to immortality!«

This did not remind me of anything further to say, so I got out, with the other boys, and we went away with that kind of indefinite sense you have often had of being filled but not fatted. They wanted me to explain, but I was tired.

We passed out through the parlor, and there was Marget at the spinet teaching Marie Lueger. So one of the deserting pupils was back; and an influential one, too: the others would follow. Marget jumped up and ran and thanked us again, with the tears in her eyes – this was the third time – for saving her and her uncle from being turned into the street, and we told her again we hadn't done it; but that was her way, she never could be grateful enough for anything a person did for her; so we let her have her say. And as we passed through the garden, there was Wilhelm Meidling sitting there waiting, for it was getting toward the edge of the evening, and he would be asking Marget to take a walk along the river with him when she was done with the lesson. He was a young lawyer, and succeeding fairly well and working his way along, little by little. He was very fond of Marget, and she of him. He had not deserted along with the others, but had stood his ground all through, although it had injured him in people's esteem and made his business fall off more or less. His faithfulness was not lost on Marget and her uncle. He hadn't so very much talent, but he was handsome and good, and these are a kind of talents themselves and help along. He asked us how the lesson was getting along, and we told him it was about done. And maybe it was so; we didn't know anything about it, but we judged it would please him, and it did; and didn't cost us anything.

On the fourth day comes Father Adolf home from the ancient priory up the valley, where he had heard the news, I reckon. He had a private talk with us, and was very much interested, and we told him all about it. He sat there studying and studying a while to himself, then he asked –

»How many ducats did you say?«

»Eleven hundred and seven, sir.«

Then he said, as if he was talking to himself –

»It is ve-ry singular. Yes... very strange. A cu-rious coincidence.«

Then he began to ask questions, and went over the whole ground, from the beginning, we answering. By and by he said –

»Eleven hundred and six ducats. It is a large sum.«

»Seven,« said Seppi, correcting him.

»Oh, seven, was it? Of course a ducat more or less isn't of consequence, but you said eleven hundred and six, before.«

It would not have become us to say he was mistaken, but we knew he was. Nikolaus said –

»Since your reverence says we said it, we did; but we meant to say seven.«

»Oh, it is no matter, lad, it was merely that I noticed the discrepancy. It is several days, and you cannot be expected to remember precisely. One is apt to be inexact when there is no particular circumstance to impress the count upon the memory.«

»But there was one, Father,« said Seppi, eagerly.

»What was it, my son,« asked Father Adolf, indifferently.

»First, we all counted the piles of coin, each in turn, and all made it the same – eleven hundred and six. But I had slipped one out, for fun, when the count began, and now I slipped it back and said, ›I think there is a mistake – there are eleven hundred and seven; let us count again.‹ We did, and of course I was right. They were astonished; then I told how it came about.«

Father Adolf asked us if this was so, and we said it was.

»That settles it,« he said. »I know the thief, now. Lads, the money was stolen.«

Then he went away, leaving us very much troubled, and wondering what he could mean. In about an hour we found out; for by that time it was all over the village that Father Peter had been arrested for stealing a great sum of money from Father Adolf. Everybody's tongue was loose and going. Many said it was not in Father Peter's character and must be a mistake; but the others shook their heads and said misery and want could drive a suffering man to almost anything. About one detail there were no differences: all agreed that Father Peter's account of how the money came into his hands was just about unbelievable, it had such an impossible look. Our characters began to suffer, now. We were Father Peter's only witnesses; how much did he probably pay us to back up his fantastic tale? People talked that kind of talk to us pretty freely and frankly, and were full of scoffings when we begged them to believe we had really told only the truth. Our parents were harder on us than any one else. Our fathers said we were disgracing our families, and they commanded us to purge ourselves of our lie, and there was no limit to their anger when we continued to say we had spoken true. Our mothers cried over us and begged us to give back our bribe and get back our honest names and save our families from shame, and come out and honorably confess. And at last we were so worried and harassed that we tried to tell the whole thing, Satan and all – but no, it wouldn't come out. We were hoping and longing, all the time, that Satan would come and help us out of our trouble, but there was no sign of him.

Within an hour after Father Adolf's talk with us Father Peter was in prison and the money sealed up and in the hands of the officers of the law. The money was in a bag, and Solomon Isaacs said he had not touched it since he had counted it; his oath was taken that it was the same money, and that the amount was eleven hundred and seven ducats. Father Peter claimed trial by the ecclesiastical court, but Father Adolf didn't want that, and said an ecclesiastical court hadn't jurisdiction over a suspended priest. The Bishop upheld him. That settled it; the case would go to trial in the civil court. The court would not sit for some time to come. Wilhelm Meidling would be Father Peter's lawyer and do the best he could, of course, but he told us privately that a weak case on his side and all the power and prejudice on the other made the outlook bad.

So Marget's new happiness died a quick death. No friends came to condole with her, and none were expected; an unsigned note withdrew her invitation to the party. There would be no scholars to take lessons. How could she support herself? She could remain in the house, for the mortgage was paid off, though the government and not poor Solomon Isaacs had the mortgage-money in its grip for the present. Old Ursula, who was cook, chambermaid, housekeeper, laundress and everything else for Father Peter, and had been Marget's nurse in earlier years, said God would provide. But she said that from habit, for she was a good Catholic and such speeches were a slang of the trade; but she meant to help in the providing, to make sure, if she could find a way.

We boys wanted to go and see Marget and show friendliness for her, but our parents were afraid of offending Father Adolf, and wouldn't let us. He was going around inflaming everybody against Father Peter and saying he was an abandoned thief and had stolen eleven hundred and seven gold ducats from him. He said he knew he was the thief from that fact, for it was exactly the sum which he had lost and which Father Peter pretended he had ›found.‹

In the afternoon of the fourth day after the catastrophe old Ursula appeared at our house and asked for some washing to do, and begged my mother to keep this a secret, to save Marget's pride, who would stop this project if she found it out, yet Marget had not enough to eat and was growing weak. Ursula was growing weak herself, and showed it; and she ate of the food that was offered her like a starving person, but could not be persuaded to carry any home, for Marget would not eat charity food. She took some clothes down to the stream to wash them, but we saw from the window that handling the bat was too much for her strength; so she was called back and a trifle of money offered her, which she was afraid to take, lest Marget should suspect; then took it, saying she would explain that she found it in the road. To keep it from being a lie and damning her soul, she got me to go and drop it, while she watched; then she went along by there and found it, and exclaimed with surprise and joy, and picked it up and went her way. Like the rest of the village she could tell every-day lies fast enough, and without taking out any precautions against fire and brimstone on their account; but this was a new kind of lie and it had a dangerous look because she hadn't had any practice in it. After a week's practice it wouldn't have given her any trouble. It is the way we are made.

I was in trouble, for how would Marget live? Ursula could not find a coin in the road every day – perhaps not even a second one. And I was ashamed, too, for not having been near Marget, and she so in need of friends; but that was my parents' fault, not mine, and I couldn't help it.

I was walking along the path, feeling very down-hearted, when a most cheery and tingling freshening-up sensation went rippling through me, and I was too glad for any words; for I knew by that sign that Satan was by. I had noticed it before. Next moment he was alongside of me and I was telling him all my trouble and what had been happening to Marget and her uncle. While we were talking we turned a curve and saw old Ursula resting in the shade of a tree, and she had a lean stray kitten in her lap and was petting it. I asked her where she got it, and she said it came out of the woods and followed her; and she said it probably hadn't any mother or any friends and she was going to take it home and take care of it. Satan said –

»I understand you are very poor; why do you want to add another mouth to feed? Why don't you give it to some rich person?«

Ursula bridled at this, and said –

»Perhaps you would like to have it. You must be rich, with your fine clothes and quality airs.« Then she sniffed, and said, »Give it to the rich – the idea! The rich don't care for anybody but themselves; it's only the poor that have feeling for the poor, and help them. The poor and God. God will provide for this kitten.«

»What makes you think so?«

Ursula's eyes snapped with anger.

»Because I know it!« she said. »Not a sparrow falls to the ground without His seeing it.«

»But it falls, just the same. What good is seeing it fall?«

Old Ursula's jaws worked, but she could not get any words out for the moment, she was so horrified. When she got her tongue she stormed out –

»Go about your business, you puppy, or I will take a stick to you!«

I could not speak, I was so scared. I knew that with his notions about the human race Satan would consider it a matter of no consequence to strike her dead, there being ›plenty more;‹ but my tongue stood still, I could give her no warning. But nothing happened; Satan remained tranquil; tranquil and indifferent. I reckon he couldn't be insulted by Ursula, any more than the King could be insulted by a tumble-bug. The old woman jumped to her feet when she made her remark; and did it as briskly as a young girl. It had been many years since she had done the like of that. That was Satan's influence; he was a fresh breeze to the weak and the sick, wherever he came. His presence affected even the lean kitten, and it skipped to the ground and began to chase a leaf. This surprised Ursula, and she stood looking at the creature and nodding her head wonderingly, her anger quite forgotten.

»What's come over it?« she said. »A while ago it could hardly walk.«

»You have not seen a kitten of that breed before,« said Satan.

Ursula was not proposing to be friendly with the mocking stranger, and she gave him an ungentle look and retorted –

»Who asked you to come here and pester me, I'd like to know? And what do you know about what I've seen and what I haven't seen?«

»You haven't seen a kitten with the hair-spines on its tongue pointing to the front, have you?«

»No – nor you either.«

»Well, examine this one and see.«

Ursula was become pretty spry, but the kitten was spryer, and she could not catch it, and had to give it up. Then Satan said –

»Give it a name, and maybe it will come.«

Ursula tried several names, but the kitten was not interested.

»Call it Agnes. Try that.«

The creature answered to the name and came. Ursula examined its tongue.

»Upon my word it's true,« she said. »I have not seen this kind of a cat before. Is it yours?«

»No.«

»Then how did you know its name so pat?«

»Because all cats of that breed are named Agnes; they will not answer to any other.«

Ursula was impressed.

»It is the most wonderful thing!« Then a shadow of trouble came into her face, for her superstitions were aroused, and she reluctantly put the creature down, saying, »I suppose I must let it go; I am not afraid – no, not exactly that, though the priest – well, I've heard people – indeed many people... And besides, it is quite well, now, and can take care of itself.« She sighed, and turned to go, murmuring, »It is such a pretty one, too, and would be such company – and the house is so sad and lonesome these troubled days... Miss Marget so mournful and just a shadow, and the old master shut up in the jail.«

»It seems a pity not to keep it,« said Satan.

Ursula turned quickly – just as if she was hoping some one would encourage her.

»Why?« she asked, wistfully.

»Because this breed brings luck.«

»Does it? Is it true? Young man, do you know it to be true? How does it bring luck?«

»Well, it brings money, anyway.«

Ursula looked disappointed.

»Money? A cat bring money – the idea! You could never sell it here; people do not buy cats here; one can't even give them away.« She turned to go.

»I don't mean sell it. I mean have an income from it. This kind is called the Lucky Cat. Its owner finds four silver groschen in his pocket every morning.«

I saw the indignation rising in the old woman's face. She was insulted. This boy was making fun of her. That was her thought. She thrust her hands into her pockets and straightened up to give him a piece of her mind. Her temper was all up, and hot. Her mouth came open and let out three words of a bitter sentence... then it fell silent, and the anger in her face turned to surprise, or wonder, or fear, or something, and she slowly brought out her hands from her pockets and opened them and held them so. In one was my piece of money, in the other lay four silver groschen. She gazed a little while, perhaps to see if the groschen would vanish away, then she said, fervently –

»It's true – it's true – and I am ashamed and beg forgiveness, oh dear master and benefactor!« and she ran to Satan and kissed his hand, over and over again, according to the Austrian custom.

In her heart she probably believed it was a witch-cat and an agent of the devil; but no matter, it was all the more certain to be able to keep its contract and furnish a daily good living for the family, for in matters of finance even the piousest of our peasants would have more confidence in an arrangement with the devil than with an archangel. Ursula started homeward, with Agnes in her arms, and I said I wished I had her privilege of seeing Marget.

Then I caught my breath, for we were there! There in the parlor, and Marget standing looking at us, astonished. She was feeble and pale, but I knew that those conditions would not last in Satan's atmosphere, and it turned out so. I introduced Satan – that is, Philip Traum, – and we sat down and talked. There was no constraint. We were simple folk, in our village, and when a stranger was a pleasant person we were soon friends. Marget wondered how we got in without her hearing us. Traum said the door was open, and we walked in and waited until she should turn around and greet us. This was not true; no door was open; we entered through the walls, or the roof, or down the chimney, or somehow; but no matter, what Satan wished a person to believe, the person was sure to believe, and so Marget was quite satisfied with that explanation. And then the main part of her mind was on Traum, anyway; she couldn't keep her eyes off him, he was so beautiful. That gratified me, and made me proud. I hoped he would show off, some, but he didn't. He seemed only interested in being friendly and telling lies. He said he was an orphan. That made Marget pity him. The water came into her eyes. He said he had never known his mamma; she passed away while he was a young thing; and said his papa was in shattered health, and had no property to speak of – in fact none of any earthly value – but he had an uncle in business down in the tropics, and he was very well off and had a monopoly, and it was from this uncle that he drew his support. The very mention of a kind uncle was enough to remind Marget of her own, and her eyes filled again. She said she hoped their two uncles would meet, some day. It made me shudder. Philip said he hoped so, too, and that made me shudder again.

»Maybe they will,« said Marget; »does your uncle travel much?«

»Oh, yes, he goes all about; he has business everywhere.«

»Then he may come here – I hope he will. I should be so glad to see him. What is his business?«

»Souls.«

»Shoe-souls?«

»Yes. He trades in them. Buys them.«

She asked where he lived; but Philip generalised on that, and merely said it was a foreign country.

»Is he a foreigner himself? Was he born there?«

»Well, no. No, he was an emigrant.«

»Is it a trying climate?«

»For some – yes; but he doesn't mind it.«

»Acclimated, I suppose.«

»Yes.«

»Is it a colony?«

»Yes.«

»What nationality?«

»Mixed. But mainly French.«

»And so that is the language in use?«

»It is the official language.«

And so they went on chatting, and poor Marget forgot her sorrows for one little while, anyway. It was probably the only really bright and cheery hour she had known lately. I saw she liked Philip, and I knew she would; anybody would. And when he told her he was studying for the ministry I could see that she liked him better than ever. And then, when he promised to get her admitted to the jail so that she could see her uncle, that was the capstone. He said he would give the guards a little present, and she must always go in the evening after dark, and say nothing, »but just show this paper and pass in, and show it again when you come out« – and he scribbled some queer marks on the paper and gave it her, and she was ever so thankful, and right away was in a fever for the sun to go down; for in that old cruel time prisoners were not allowed to see their friends, and sometimes they spent years in the jails without ever seeing a friendly face. I judged that the marks on the paper were an enchantment, and that the guards would not know what they were doing, nor have any memory of it afterward; and that was indeed the way of it. Ursula put her head in at the door, now, and said –

»Supper's ready, Miss.« Then she saw us and looked frightened, and motioned me to come to her, which I did, and she asked if we had told about the cat. I said no, and she was relieved, and said please don't; for if Miss Marget knew, she would think it was an unholy cat and would send for a priest and have its gifts all purified out of it, and then there wouldn't be any more dividends. So I said we wouldn't tell, and she was satisfied. Then I was beginning to say good-bye to Marget, but Satan interrupted and said, ever so politely – well, I don't remember just the words, but anyway he as good as invited himself to supper, and me, too. Of course Marget was miserably embarrassed, for she had no reason to suppose there would be half enough food for a sick bird. Ursula heard him, and she came straight into the room, not a bit pleased. At first she was astonished to see Marget looking so fresh and rosy, and said so; then she spoke up in her native tongue, which was Bohemian and said – as I learned afterward –

»The impudent thing! inviting himself when nobody's asked him. It's just like him – I've never seen the beat of him for making himself easy on a short acquaintance. Send him packing, Miss Marget – there's not victuals enough.«

Before Marget could speak, Satan had the word, and was talking back at Ursula in her own language – which was a surprise for her, and for her mistress, too. He asked –

»Didn't I see you down the road a while ago?«

»Yes, sir.«

»Ah, that pleases me; I see you remember me.«

»Why, of course, sir. Nobody that sees you once can forget you, I reckon. And besides, you are so good, and so – so – so aggravating.«

»Can you keep a secret?«

»I can try, sir. For your goodness, though; not for your aggravatingness.«

He stepped to her and whispered, »I told you it is a Lucky Cat. Don't be troubled – it will provide.«

That sponged the slate of Ursula's feelings clean of its anxieties, and a deep financial joy shone in her eyes. The cat's value was augmenting. It was getting full time for Marget to take some sort of notice of Satan's invitation, and she did it in the best way, the honest way that was natural to her. She said she had little to offer, but that we were welcome if we would share it with her.

We had supper in the kitchen, and Ursula waited at table. A small fish was in the frying-pan, crisp and brown and tempting, and one could see that Marget was not expecting such respectable food as this. Ursula brought it, and Marget divided it between Satan and me, declining to take any of it herself; and was beginning to say she did not care for fish to-day, but she did not finish the remark. It was because she noticed that another fish had appeared in the pan. She looked surprised, but did not say anything. She probably meant to inquire of Ursula about this, later. There were other surprises: flesh, and game, and wines and fruits – things which had been strangers in that house lately; but Marget made no exclamations, and did what she could to look unsurprised, which was human and natural. Satan talked right along, and was entertaining, and made the time pass pleasantly and cheerfully; and although he told a good many lies it was no harm in him, for he was only an angel and did not know any better. They do not know right from wrong; I knew this, because I remembered what he had said about it. He accomplished one thing which I was glad of – he got on the good side of Ursula. He praised her to Marget, confidentially, but speaking just loud enough for Ursula to hear. He said she was a fine woman, and he hoped some day to bring her and his uncle together. Very soon Ursula was mincing and simpering around in a ridiculous girly way, and smoothing out her gown and prinking at herself like a foolish old hen, and all the time pretending she was not hearing what Satan was saying. I was ashamed, for it showed us to be what Satan considered us, a silly race and trivial. Satan said it was time his uncle was married, for he entertained a great deal, and always had company staying with him, and to have a clever woman presiding over the festivities would double the attractions of the place.

»But your uncle is a gentleman, isn't he?« asked Marget.

»Yes,« said Satan, indifferently; »some even call him a Prince, out of compliment, but he is not bigoted; to him personal merit is everything, rank nothing.«

Marget thought he must be a most lovable gentleman and much sought after. Satan said he was; and a great help to the clergy – but for him they would have to go out of business.

My hand was hanging down by my chair; Agnes came along and licked it; by this act a secret was revealed. I started to say »It is all a mistake; this is just a common ordinary cat; the hair-needles on her tongue point inward, not outward.« But the words did not come, because they couldn't. Satan smiled upon me, and I understood. It was as if he had said, »I know your thought, but you will keep it to yourself.«

When it was dark Marget took food and wine and fruit, in a basket, and hurried away to the jail, and Satan and I walked toward my home. I was thinking to myself that I should like to see what the inside of a jail was like; Satan overheard the thought, and the next moment we were in the jail. We were in the torture-chamber, Satan said. The rack was there, and the other instruments, and there was a smoky lantern or two hanging on the walls and helping to make the place look dim and dreadful. There were people there, – a priest and executioners, – but as they took no notice of us, it meant that we were invisible. A young man lay bound, and Satan said he was suspected of being an unsound Catholic, and the priest and the executioners were about to inquire into it. They asked the man to confess to the charge, and he said he could not, for it was not true. Then they drove splinter after splinter under his nails, and he shrieked with the pain. Satan was not disturbed, for it was only a human being, but I could not endure it, and had to be whisked out of there. I was faint and sick, but the fresh air revived me, and we walked toward my home. I said it was a brutal thing.

»No, it was a human thing. You should not insult the brutes by such a misuse of that word – they have not deserved it;« and he went on talking like that. »It is like your paltry race – always lying, always claiming virtues which it hasn't got, always denying them to the Higher Animals, which alone possess them. No brute ever does a cruel thing – that is the monopoly of the snob with the Moral Sense. When a brute inflicts pain he does it innocently; it is not wrong; for him there is no such thing as wrong. And he does not inflict pain for the pleasure of inflicting it – only man does that. Inspired by that mongrel Moral Sense of his! A Sense whose function is to distinguish between right and wrong, with liberty to choose which of them he will do. Now what advantage can he get out of that? He is always choosing, and in nine cases out of ten he prefers the wrong. There shouldn't be any wrong; and without the Moral Sense there couldn't be any. And yet he is such an unreasoning creature that he is not able to perceive that the Moral Sense degrades him to the bottom layer of animated beings and is a shameful possession. Are you feeling better? Let me show you something.«

In a moment we were in a French village. We walked through a great factory of some sort, where men and women and little children were toiling in heat and dirt and a fog of dust; and they were clothed in rags, and drooped at their work, for they were worn, and half-starved, and weak and drowsy. Satan said –

»It is some more Moral Sense. The proprietors are rich, and very holy; but the wage they pay to these poor brothers and sisters of theirs is only enough to keep them from dropping dead with hunger. The work-hours are fifteen per day, winter and summer – from 5 in the morning till 8 at night – little children and all. And they walk to and from the pig-sties which they inhabit – four miles each way, through mud and slush, rain, snow, sleet and storm, daily, year in and year out. They get four hours of sleep. They kennel together, three families in a room, in unimaginable filth and stench; and disease comes, and they die off like flies. Have they committed a crime, these poor mangy things? No. Have they offended the priest? No; they are his pets – they fatten him with their farthings, or he would have to work for his living. What have they done, that they are punished so? Nothing at all, except getting themselves born into your foolish race. You have seen how they treat a misdoer there in the jail, now you see how they treat the innocent and the worthy. Is your race logical? Are these ill-smelling innocents better off than that heretic? Indeed, no, his punishment is trivial compared with theirs. They broke him on the wheel and mashed him to rags and pulp after we left, and he is dead, now, and free of your precious race; but these poor slaves here – why, they have been dying for years, and some of them will not escape from life for years to come. It is the Moral Sense which teaches the factory-proprietors the difference between right and wrong – you perceive the result. They think themselves better than dogs. Ah, you are such an illogical, unreasoning race! And paltry – oh, unspeakably!«

Then he dropped all seriousness and just overstrained himself making fun of us, and deriding our pride in our warlike deeds, our great heroes, our imperishable fames, our mighty Kings, our ancient aristocracies, our venerable history – and laughed and laughed till it was enough to make a person sick to hear him; and finally he sobered a little and said »but after all, it is not all ridiculous, there is a sort of pathos about it when one remembers how few are your days, how childish your pomps, and what shadows you are!«

Presently all things vanished suddenly from my sight, and I knew what it meant. The next moment we were walking along in our village; and down toward the river I saw the twinkling lights of the Golden Stag. Then in the dark I heard a joyful cry –

»He's come again!«

It was Seppi Wohlmeyer. He had felt his blood leap and his spirits rise in a way that could mean only one thing, and he knew Satan was near although it was too dark to see him. He came to us and we walked along together, and Seppi poured out his gladness like water. It was as if he was a lover and had found his sweetheart which had been lost. Seppi was a smart and animated boy, and had enthusiasm and expression, and was a contrast to Nikolaus and me. He was full of the last new mystery, now – the disappearance of Hans Oppert, the village loafer. People were beginning to be curious about it, he said. He did not say anxious – curious was the right word, and strong enough. No one had seen Hans for a couple of days.

»Not since he did that brutal thing, you know,« he said.

»What brutal thing?« It was Satan that asked.

»Well, he is always clubbing his dog, which is a good dog, and is his only friend, and is faithful, and loves him, and does no one any harm; and two days ago he was at it again, just for nothing – just for pleasure – and the dog was howling and begging, and Theodor and I begged, too, but he threatened us, and struck the dog again with all his might and knocked one of its eyes out, so that it hung down; and he said to us, ›There, I hope you are satisfied, now – that's what you have got for him by your damned meddling‹ – and he laughed, the heartless brute.« Seppi's voice trembled with pity and anger. I guessed what Satan would say, and he said it.

»There is that misused word again – that shabby slander. Brutes do not act like that, but only men.«

»Well, it was inhuman, anyway.«

»No it wasn't, Seppi, it was human – quite distinctly human. It is not pleasant to hear you libel the Higher Animals by attributing to them dispositions which they are free from, and which are found nowhere but in the human heart. None of the Higher Animals is tainted with the disease called the Moral Sense. Purify your language, Seppi; drop those lying phrases out of it.«

He spoke pretty sternly – for him – and I was sorry I hadn't warned Seppi to be more particular about the words he used. I knew how he was feeling. He would not want to offend Satan; he would rather offend all his kin. There was an uncomfortable silence, but relief soon came, for that poor dog came along, now, with that eye hanging down, and went straight to Satan, and began to moan or mutter brokenly, and Satan began to answer in the same way, and it was plain that they were talking together in the dog language. We all sat down in the grass, in the moonlight, for the clouds were breaking away, now, and Satan took the dog's head in his lap and put the eye back in its place, and the dog was comfortable, and wagged his tail and licked Satan's hand, and looked thankful and said the same – I knew he was saying it, though I did not understand the words. Then the two talked together a bit, and Satan said –

»He says his master was drunk.«

»Yes, he was,« said we.

»And an hour later he fell over the precipice there beyond the Cliff Pasture.«

»We know the place, it is three miles from here.«

»And the dog has been often to the village, begging people to go there, but he was only driven away and not listened to.«

We remembered it, but hadn't understood what he wanted.

»He only wanted help for the man who had misused him, and he thought only of that, and has had no food nor sought any. He has watched by his master two nights. What do you think of your race? Is heaven reserved for it, and this dog ruled out, as your teachers tell you? Can your race add anything to this dog's stock of morals and magnanimities?« He spoke to the creature, who jumped up, eager and happy, and apparently ready for orders, and impatient to execute them. »Get some men; go with the dog – he will show you that carrion; and take a priest along to arrange about insurance, for death is near.«

With the last word he vanished, to our sorrow and disappointment. We got the men and the priest, and we saw the man die. Nobody cared but the dog, but he mourned and grieved, and licked the dead face, and could not be comforted. The man had died without the last sacraments, for he was unconscious and the priest refused them. We buried him where he was, and without a coffin, for he had no money, and no friend but the dog, and he could not be buried in holy ground, for he had died in sin. We buried him without any funeral services, for in the circumstances the priest would not perform them, of course, nor countenance the unholy burial with his presence. If we had been an hour earlier the priest would have been in time to send that poor creature to heaven, but now he was gone down into the awful fires, to burn forever. It seemed such a pity that in a world where so many people have difficulty to put in their time, one little hour could not have been spared for this poor creature who needed it so much, and to whom it would have made the difference between eternal joy and eternal pain. It gave me an appalling idea of the value of an hour, and I thought I could never waste one again without remorse and terror. Seppi was depressed and grieved, and said it must be so much better to be a dog and not run such awful risks. We took this one home with us and kept him for our own. Seppi had a very good thought as we were walking along, and it cheered us up and made us feel much better. He said the dog had forgiven the man that had wronged him so, and maybe God would accept that absolution in place of the priest's, though it was furnished gratis and therefore was not really official and regular.

Chapter 4

There was a very dull week, now, for Satan did not come, nothing much was going on, and we boys could not venture to go and see Marget, because the nights were moonlit and our parents might find us out if we tried. But we came across Ursula a couple of times taking a walk in the meadows beyond the river to air the cat, and we learned from her that things were going well. She had natty new clothes on and bore a prosperous look. The four groschen a day were arriving without a break but were not being spent for food and wine and such things – the cat attended to all that. Marget was enduring her forsakenness and isolation fairly well, all things considered, and was cheerful, by help of Wilhelm Meidling. She spent an hour or two every night in the jail with her uncle, and had fattened him up with the cat's contributions. But she was curious to know more about Philip Traum, and hoped I would bring him again. Ursula was curious about him herself, and asked a good many questions about his uncle. It made the boys laugh, for I had told them the nonsense Satan had been stuffing her with. She got no satisfaction out of us, our tongues being tied. Ursula gave us a small item of information: money being plenty now, she had taken on a servant to help about the house and run errands. She tried to tell it in a commonplace matter-of-course way, but she was so set up by it and so vain of it that her pride in it leaked out pretty plainly. It was beautiful to see her veiled delight in this grandeur, poor old thing, but when we heard the name of the servant we wondered if she had been altogether wise; for although we were young, and often thoughtless, we had fairly good perception in some matters. This boy was Gottfried Narr, a dull good creature with no harm in him and nothing against him, personally; still, he was under a cloud, and properly so, for it had not been six months since a social blight had mildewed the family – his grandmother had been burnt as a witch. When that kind of a malady is in the blood it does not always come out with just one burning. Father Adolf had often said so, and had warned the people to keep a lookout on those Narrs. Just now was not a good time for Ursula and Marget to be having dealings with a member of such a family, for the witch-terror had risen higher during the past year than it had ever reached in the memory of the oldest villagers. The mere mention of a witch was almost enough to frighten us out of our wits. This was natural enough, because of late years there were more kinds of witches than there used to be; in old times it had been only old women, but of late years they were of all ages – even children of eight and nine; so it was getting so that anybody might turn out to be a familiar of the devil – age and sex hadn't anything to do with it. In our little region we had tried to extirpate the witches, but the more of them we burned the more of the breed rose up in their places.

Once, in a school for girls only ten miles away, the nuns found that the back of one of the girls was all red and inflamed, and they were greatly frightened, believing it to be the devil's marks. The girl was scared, and begged them not to denounce her, and said it was only fleas; and indeed that is what it looked like; but of course it would not do to let the matter rest there. All the girls were examined, and eleven out of the fifty were badly marked, the rest less so. A commission was appointed, but the eleven only cried for their mothers and would not confess. Then they were shut up, each by herself, in the dark, and put on black bread and water, for ten days and nights; and by that time they were haggard and wild, and their eyes were dry and they did not cry any more, but only sat and mumbled, and would not take the food. Then one of them confessed, and said they had often ridden through the air on broomsticks to the witches' sabbath, and in a bleak place high up in the mountains had danced and drunk and caroused with several hundred other witches and with Satan, and all had conducted themselves in a scandalous way and had reviled the priests and blasphemed God. That is what she said – not in narrative form, for she was not able to remember any of the details without having them called to her mind one after the other; but the commission did that, for they knew just what questions to ask, they being all written down by the Pope for the use of witch-commissions two centuries before. They asked »Did you do so and so?« and she always said yes, and looked weary and tired and took no interest in it. And so when the other ten heard that this one had confessed, they confessed too, and answered yes to the questions. Then they were burnt at the stake all together, which was just and right; and everybody went from all the countryside to see it. I went, too; but when I saw that one of them was a bonny sweet girl I used to play with, and looked so pitiful there chained to the stake and her mother crying over her and devouring her with kisses and clinging around her neck and saying »Oh, my God! oh, my God!« it was too dreadful and I went away.

It was bitter cold weather when Gottfried's grandmother was burnt. It was charged that she had cured bad headaches by kneading the person's head and neck with her fingers – as she said – but really by the devil's help, as everybody knew. They were going to examine her, but she stopped them, and confessed straight off that her power was from the devil. So they appointed to burn her next morning early, in our market square. The officer who was to prepare the fire was there first, and prepared it. She was there next, – brought by the constables, who left her and went to fetch another witch. Her family did not come with her. They might be reviled, maybe stoned, if the people were excited. I came, and gave her an apple. She was squatting at the fire, warming herself, and waiting; and her old lips and hands were blue with the cold. A stranger came next. He was a traveler, passing through; and he spoke to her gently, and seeing nobody but me there to hear, said he was sorry for her. And he asked her if what she had confessed was true, and she said no. He looked surprised, and still more sorry, then, and asked her –

»Then why did you confess?«

»I am old and very poor,« she said, »and I work for my living. There was no way but to confess. If I hadn't, they might have set me free. That would ruin me; for no one would forget that I had been suspected of being a witch, and so I would get no more work, and wherever I went they would set the dogs on me. In a little while I should starve. The fire is best, it is soon over. You have been good to me, you two, and I thank you.«

She snuggled closer to the fire, and put out her hands to warm them, the snow-flakes descending soft and still on her old gray head and making it white and whiter. The crowd was gathering, now, and an egg came flying, and struck her in the eye, and broke and ran down her face. There was a laugh, at that.

I told Satan all about the eleven girls and the old woman, once, but it did not affect him. He only said it was the human race, and what the human race did was of no consequence. And he said he had seen it made; and it was not made of clay, it was made of mud – part of it was, anyway. I knew what he meant by that – the Moral Sense. He saw the thought in my head, and it tickled him and made him laugh. Then he called a bullock out of a pasture and petted it and talked with it, and said –

»There – he wouldn't drive children mad with hunger and fright and loneliness, and then burn them for confessing to things invented for them which had never happened. And neither would he break the hearts of innocent poor old women and make them afraid to trust themselves among their own race; and he would not insult them in their death-agony. For he is not besmirched with the Moral Sense, but is as pure from it as the angels are, and knows no wrong and never does it.«

Lovely as he was, Satan could be cruelly offensive when he chose; and he always chose, when the human race was brought to his attention. He always turned up his nose at it, and never had a kind word for it. I do not see how a person can act so.

Well, as I was saying, we boys doubted if it was a good time for Ursula to be hiring a member of the Narr family. We were right. When the people found it out they were naturally indignant. And moreover, since Marget and Ursula hadn't enough to eat, themselves, where was the money to come from to feed another mouth? That is what they wanted to know; and in order to find out, they stopped avoiding Gottfried and began to seek his society and have sociable conversations with him. He was pleased – not thinking any harm, and not seeing the trap – and so he talked innocently along, and was no discreeter than a cow.

»Money!« he said, »they've got plenty of it. They pay me two groschen a week, besides my keep. And they live on the fat of the land, I can tell you; the Prince himself can't beat their table.«

This astonishing statement was conveyed to Father Adolf on a Sunday morning when he was returning from mass. He was deeply moved, and said –

»Hell and flinders! this must be looked into.«

He said there was witchcraft at the bottom of this outrage, and told the villagers to resume relations with Marget and Ursula in a private and unostentatious way and keep both eyes open. They were to keep their own counsel, and not rouse the suspicions of the household. The villagers were at first a bit reluctant to enter such a dreadful place, but the priest said they would be under his protection while there, and no harm would come to them, particularly if they carried a trifle of holy water along and kept their beads and crosses handy. This satisfied them and made them willing to go; envy and malice made the baser sort even eager to go.

And so poor Marget began to have company again, and was as pleased as a cat. She was like 'most anybody else – just human, and happy in her prosperities and not averse from showing them off a little; and she was humanly grateful to have the warm shoulder turned to her and be smiled upon by her friends and the village again; for of all the hard things to bear, to be cut by your neighbors and left in contemptuous solitude is maybe the hardest.

The bars were down, and we could all go there now, and we did – our parents and all. Day after day. The cat began to strain herself. She provided the top of everything for those companies, and in abundance – among them many a dish and many a wine which they had not tasted before and which they had not even heard of except at second hand from the Prince's servants. And the table-ware was much above ordinary, too.

Marget was troubled at first, and pursued Ursula with questions to an uncomfortable degree; but Ursula stood her ground and stuck to it that it was Providence, and said no word about the cat. Marget knew that nothing was impossible to Providence, but she could not help having doubts that this effort was from thence, though she was afraid to say so, lest disaster come of it. Witchcraft occurred to her, but she put the thought aside, for this was before Gottfried joined the household, and she knew Ursula was pious and a bitter hater of witches. By the time Gottfried arrived Providence was established, unshakably intrenched, and getting all the gratitude. The cat made no murmur, but went on composedly working the commissariat and improving in style and prodigality by experience.

In any community, big or little, there is always a fair proportion of people who are not malicious or unkind by nature, and who never do unkind things except when they are overmastered by fear, or when their self-interest is greatly in danger, or some such matter as that. Eseldorf had its proportion of such people, and ordinarily their good and gentle influence was felt, but these were not ordinary times – on account of the witch-dread – and so we did not seem to have any gentle and compassionate hearts left, to speak of. Every person was frightened at the unaccountable state of things at Marget's house, not doubting that witchcraft was at the bottom of it, and fright frenzied their reason. Naturally there were some who pitied Marget and Ursula for the danger that was gathering about them, but naturally they did not say so – it would not have been safe. So the others had it all their own way, and there was none to advise the ignorant girl and the foolish old woman and warn them to modify their doings. We boys wanted to warn them, but we backed down when it came to the pinch, being afraid Father Adolf would find it out. We found that we were not manly enough nor brave enough to do a generous action when there was a chance that it could get us into trouble. Neither of us confessed this poor spirit to the others, but did as other people would have done – dropped the subject and talked about something else. And I know we all felt mean, eating and drinking Marget's fine things along with those companies of spies, and petting her and complimenting her with the rest, and seeing with self-reproach how foolishly happy she was, and never saying a word to put her on her guard. And indeed she was happy, and as proud as a princess, and so grateful to have friends again. And all the time those people were watching with all their eyes and reporting all they saw to Father Adolf.

But he couldn't make head nor tail of the situation. There must be an enchanter somewhere on the premises, but who was it? Marget was not seen to do any jugglery, nor was Ursula, nor yet Gottfried; and still the wines and dainties never ran short, and a guest could not call for a thing and not get it. To produce these effects was usual enough with witches and enchanters – that part of it was not new; but to do it without any incantations, or even any rumblings or earthquakes or lightnings or apparitions – that was new, novel, wholly irregular. There was nothing in the books like this. Enchanted things were always unreal: gold turned to dirt in an unenchanted atmosphere, food withered away and vanished. But this test failed, in the present case. The spies brought samples: Father Adolf prayed over them, exorcised them, swore at them, but it did no good; they remained sound and real, they yielded to natural decay only, and took the usual time to it.

Father Adolf was not merely puzzled, he was also exasperated; for these evidences very nearly convinced him – privately – that there was no witchcraft in the matter. It did not wholly convince him, for this could be a new kind of witchcraft. There was a way to find out, as to this: if this prodigal abundance of provender was not brought in from the outside but produced on the premises, there was witchcraft, sure.

Marget announced a party, and invited forty people; the date for it was seven days away. This was Father Adolf's opportunity. Marget's house stood by itself, and could be easily watched. All the week it was watched night and day. Marget's household went out and in as usual, but they carried nothing in their hands, and neither they nor others brought anything to the house. This was ascertained. Evidently rations for forty people were not being fetched. If they were furnished any sustenance it would have to be made on the premises. It was true that Marget went out with a basket every evening, but the spies ascertained that she always brought it back empty.

The guests arrived at noon, and filled the place. Father Adolf followed, after a little, without an invitation. His spies informed him that neither at the back nor the front had any parcels been brought in. He entered, and found the eating and drinking going on finely, and everything going on in a lively and festive way. He glanced around and perceived that many of the cooked delicacies and all of the native and foreign fruits were of a perishable character, and he also recognised that these were fresh and perfect. No apparitions, no incantations, no thunder. That settled it. This was witchcraft. And not only that, but of a new kind – a kind never dreamed of before. It was a prodigious find, an illustrious find – and he the discoverer of it! The announcement of it would resound throughout the world, penetrate to the remotest lands, paralyse all the nations with amazement – and carry his name with it, and make him renowned forever. It was a wonderful piece of luck, a splendid piece of luck; the glory of it made him dizzy.

All the house made reverence to him, Marget seated him, Ursula ordered Gottfried to bring a special table for him, then she decked it and furnished it, and asked for his orders.

»Bring me what you will,« he said.

The two servants brought supplies from the pantry, together with white wine and red – a bottle of each. The priest took some water, blessed it, then sprinkled it over everything, bottles and all; then bowed his head and said grace. He poured out a beaker of red wine, drank it off, poured another, then began to eat, with a grand appetite.

I was not expecting Satan, for it was more than a week since I had seen him or heard of him, but now he came in – I knew it by the feel, though people were in the way and I could not see him. I heard him apologising for intruding; and he was going away, but Marget urged him to stay, and he thanked her and stayed. She brought him along, introducing him to the girls, and to Meidling and to some of the elders; and there was quite a rustle of whispers: »It's the young stranger we hear so much about and can't get a sight of, he is away so much.« »Dear, dear, but he is beautiful – what is his name?« »Philip Traum.« »Ah, it fits him!« (You see, Traum is German for Dream.) »What does he do?« »Studying for the ministry, they say.« »His face is his fortune – he'll be a cardinal some day.« »Where is his home?« »Away down somewhere in the tropics, they say – has a rich uncle down there.« And so on. He made his way at once; everybody was anxious to know him and talk with him. Everybody noticed how cool and fresh it was, all of a sudden, and wondered at it, for they could see that the sun was beating down the same as before, outside, and the sky clear of clouds, but no one guessed the reason, of course.

Father Adolf had drunk his second beaker; he poured a third. He set the bottle down, and by accident overturned it. He seized it before much was spilt, and held it up to the light, saying »What a pity – it is royal wine.« Then his face lighted with joy or triumph or something, and he said –

»Quick – bring a bowl.«

It was brought – a four-quart one. He took up that two-pint bottle and began to pour; went on pouring, and still pouring, the red liquor gurgling and gushing into the white bowl and rising higher and higher up its sides, everybody staring and holding their breath – and presently the bowl was full to the brim.

»Look at the bottle,« he said, holding it up; »it is full yet!« I glanced at Satan, and in that moment he vanished. The priest rose up, flushed and excited, crossed himself, and began to thunder in his bull voice: »This house is bewitched and accursed!« People began to cry and shriek and crowd toward the door. »I summon this detected household to....« I saw Satan, a transparent film, melt into the priest's body; then the priest put up his hand, and apparently in his own big voice said, »Wait – remain where you are.« All stopped where they stood. »Bring a funnel.« Ursula brought it, trembling and scared, and he stuck it in the bottle and took up the great bowl and began to pour the wine back, the people gazing and dazed with astonishment, for they knew that the bottle was already full before he began. He emptied the whole of the bowl into the bottle, then smiled out over the room, chuckled, and said, indifferently, »It is nothing – anybody can do it!«

A frightened cry burst out everywhere, »Oh, my God, he is possessed!« and there was a tumultuous rush for the door which swiftly emptied the house of all who did not belong in it except us boys and Meidling. We boys knew the secret, and would have told it if we could, but we couldn't. We were very thankful to Satan for furnishing that good help at the needful time.

Marget was pale, and crying, Meidling looked kind of petrified; Ursula the same; but Gottfried was the worst – he couldn't stand, he was so weak and scared. For he was of a witch family, you know, and it would be bad for him to be suspected of witching a priest. Agnes came loafing in, looking pious and unaware, and wanted to rub up against Ursula and be petted, but Ursula was afraid of her and shrank away from her, but pretending she was not meaning any incivility, for she knew very well it wouldn't answer to have strained relations with that kind of a cat. But we boys took Agnes and petted her, for Satan would not have befriended her if he had not had a good opinion of her, and that was endorsement enough for us. He seemed to trust anything that hadn't the Moral Sense.

Outside the guests scattered in every direction and fled in a pitiable state of terror, gasping out to all they met, that Father Adolf was possessed of a devil; and such a tumult they made with their running and sobbing and shrieking and shouting that soon all the village came flocking from their houses to see what had happened, and they thronged the street and shouldered and jostled each other in their excitement and fright; and then Father Adolf appeared and they fell apart in two walls like the cloven Red Sea, and down this lane Father Adolf came striding and mumbling, and where he passed the lanes surged back in packed masses, and fell silent with awe, and their eyes stared and their breasts heaved, and several women fainted; and when he was gone by, the crowd swarmed together and followed him at a distance, talking excitedly and asking questions and finding out the facts. Finding out the facts and passing them on to others, with improvements; improvements which soon enlarged the bowl of wine to a barrel and made the one bottle hold it all and yet remain empty to the last.

When Father Adolf reached the market square he went straight to a juggler fantastically dressed, who was keeping three brass balls in the air and took them from him and faced around upon the approaching crowd and said –

»This poor clown is ignorant of his art. Come forward and see an expert perform.«

So saying he tossed the balls up one after the other and set them whirling in a slender bright oval in the air, and added another, then another and another and so on – no one seeing whence he got them – adding, adding, adding, the oval lengthening and lengthening all the time, his hands moving so swiftly that they were just a web or a blur and not distinguishable as hands; and such as counted said there were now a hundred balls in the air. The spinning great oval reached up twenty feet in the air and was a shining and glinting and wonderful sight. Then he folded his arms and told the balls to go on spinning without his help – and they did it. After a couple of minutes he said, »There, that will do,« and the oval broke and came crashing down and the balls scattered abroad and rolled every whither. And wherever one of them came, the people fell back in dread, and no one would touch it. It made him laugh, and he scoffed at the people and called them cowards and old women. Then he turned and saw the tight-rope, and said foolish people were daily wasting their money to see a clumsy and ignorant varlet degrade that beautiful art – now they should see the work of a master. With that he made a spring into the air and lit firm on his feet on the rope. Then he hopped the whole length of it back and forth on one foot, with his hands clasped over his eyes; and next he began to throw summersaults, both backward and forward, and threw twenty-seven.

The people murmured, and were deeply scandalised to see a priest do such worldly things; but he was not disturbed, and went on with his antics just the same. Finally he sprang lightly down and walked away, and passed up the road and around a corner and disappeared. Then that great pale, silent, solid crowd drew a deep breath, and looked into each others' faces as if they said, »Was it real? Did you see it, or was it only I – and was I dreaming?« Then they broke into a low murmur of talking, and fell apart in couples and moved toward their homes, still talking in that awed way with their faces close together and laying a hand on an arm and making other such gestures as people make when they have been deeply impressed by something.

We boys followed behind our fathers, and listened, catching all we could of what they said; and when they sat down in our house and continued their talk they still had us for company. They were in a sad mood, for it was certain, they said, that disaster for the village must follow this awful visitation of witches and devils.

»They have not ventured to lay their hands upon an anointed servant of God before,« said my father; »and how they could have dared it this time I cannot make out; for he wore his crucifix – isn't it so?«

»Yes,« said the others, »we saw it.«

»It is serious, friends, it is very serious. Always before, we had a protection. It has failed.«

The others shook, as with a sort of chill, and muttered those words over –

»It has failed.«

»God has forsaken us.«

»It is true,« said Seppi Wohlmeyer's father, »there is nowhere to look for help.«

»The people will realise this,« said Nikolaus's father the judge, »and despair will take away their courage and their energies. We have indeed fallen upon evil times.«

He sighed, and Wohlmeyer said in a troubled voice –

»The report of it will go about the country and our village will be shunned, as being under the displeasure of God. The Golden Stag will know hard times.«

»True, neighbor,« said my father, »all of us will suffer – all in repute, many in estate. And good God!«

»What is it!«

»That can come – to finish us!«

»Name it – um Gottes Willen!«

»The Interdict!«

It smote like a thunderclap, and they were like to swoon with the terror of it. Then the dread of this calamity roused their energies, and they stopped brooding and began to consider ways to avert it. They discussed this, that and the other way, knowing all the time that there was but one best way, yet all being afraid to mention it. But it had to come out at last: the witch-commission must summon the priest and put him on his trial, and somebody must go and call the commission's attention to its duty, for otherwise it would shirk its duty, naturally fearing to proceed against a priest, and they, like all the community, being hardly less afraid of this particular priest than of the strangely intrepid devil that was in him. Whoever pushed the commission to its work would be in trouble, for Father Adolf would know of it promptly through betrayal of the informer by the commission, and would mark that man.

They were in a trying position, now: if they moved in this matter and the priest escaped the stake, he would ruin them; if they kept silence, there was the possible interdict, a calamity of which they would get their share. They talked and talked till the afternoon was far spent, then confessed that at present they could arrive at no decision. So they parted sorrowfully, with oppressed hearts which were filled with bodings.

While they were saying their parting words I slipped out and set my course for Marget's house to see what was happening there. I met many people, but none of them greeted me. It ought to have been surprising, but it was not, for they were so distraught with fear and dread that they were not in their right minds, I think; they were white and haggard, and walked like persons in a dream, their eyes open but seeing nothing, their lips moving but uttering nothing, and worriedly clasping and unclasping their hands without knowing it.

At Marget's it was like a funeral. She and Wilhelm sat together on the sofa, but saying nothing, and not even holding hands. Both were steeped in gloom, and Marget's eyes were red from the crying she had been doing. She said –

»I have been begging him to go, and come no more, and so save himself alive. I cannot bear to be his murderer. This house is bewitched, and no inmate of it will escape the fire. But he will not go; and he will be lost with the rest.«

Wilhelm said he would not go; if there was danger for her, his place was by her and there he would remain. She said dear sweet things to him for that, and he said they made him very happy, but he could not change his mind. Then she began to cry again, and it was all so mournful that I wished I had stayed away. There was a knock, now, and Satan came in, fresh and cheery and beautiful, and brought that winy atmosphere of his and changed the whole thing. He never said a word about what had been happening, nor about the awful fears which were freezing the blood in the hearts of the community, but began to talk and rattle on about all manner of gay and pleasant things; and next about music – an artful stroke which cleared away the remnant of Marget's depression and brought her spirits and her interest broad awake. She had not heard any one talk so well and so knowingly on that subject before; and she was so uplifted by it and so charmed that what she was feeling lit up her face and came out in her words, and Wilhelm noticed it and did not look as pleased as he ought to have done. And next Satan branched off into poetry, and recited some, and did it well, and Marget was charmed again; and again Wilhelm was not as pleased as he ought to have been, and this time Marget noticed it and was remorseful, and said –

»Wilhelm writes poetry, and I think it is beautiful.«

Then she went on to tell about a poem he had written the day before, and she and Satan persuaded him to read it. He was greatly pleased and mollified, and not hard to persuade. It was a very stirring tale about a girl who was carried off by bandits, and was followed through a thunderous and stormy night by her lover, who rescued her and drove off the captors, killing several of them in a brave fight, but in his turn receiving wounds of which he died just as the morning sun was brightening the world with hope and happiness. It was moving and fine, and he read it well and was entitled to praise, and got it in full measure from both Marget and Satan.

Next, Marget proposed that Wilhelm and Philip vary the entertainment with a game of chess, and she would look on. I knew what her idea was. She was proud of Wilhelm's poetical success and of the praise it had won from Philip, and she wanted to show off Wilhelm still further and raise him still higher in the stranger's esteem; for Wilhelm was champion at chess in all that region and accustomed to giving the odds of a castle to the next best man. But it was my opinion that she was making a mistake this time; she would better try to show off Wilhelm in some other way, it seemed to me.

Satan said he was ready to play, and glad. Then he added, in his frank and confident way, that he was a good player, and so, to be fair, he would play against both of them if they were willing. It amused Wilhelm, who said –

»I see you don't know my reputation; but let it be as you say.«

At the associated pair's ninth move, Satan said –

»There, the game is mine: checkmate in nineteen moves. Let us play another.«

He was going to re-set the pieces; but Wilhelm stopped him, and said –

»Ah, wait. We will see about that. You will probably change your opinion before many minutes. I'm not in the habit of surrendering to remote possibilities.«

»But this isn't a remote possibility, it is a certainty.«

»I don't see how you can know that. And I don't begin to believe it. Let us continue.«

»Very well. It is your privilege – but it wastes time.«

He moved. The couple made an answering move, and Satan said –

»You are worse off, now: checkmate in fourteen moves.«

Wilhelm was annoyed, but he said nothing; only bit his lip. Satan moved; the couple studied a painful while; considered and discussed various moves, then made one. Satan said –

»Checkmate in eleven moves« – and moved queen's castle.

Wilhelm flushed, but held his peace. After cautious deliberation the couple decided upon a move and made it.

»Checkmate in seven moves,« said Satan, advancing his queen.

Wilhelm was sorely tried, but he kept his temper. Kept it, but continued the game, and was finally checkmated, of course.

»It is a defeat,« he said, »and I confess it. I believe you are stronger than I am.« Then he added, »particularly in guessing.«

Guessing those checkmates so far ahead was what he meant; but Satan made no comment. Wilhelm asked the odds of a knight, and they played again. Wilhelm lost. Then he took the odds of both knights and was again defeated. His temper almost got the better of him, now. He said, ironically, that perhaps Philip could even give his queen away and beat him. But Satan said –

»Yes. Let us begin.«

Of course he beat him. I think he could have beaten him with a pawn. Wilhelm was so vexed, by this time, that Marget cast about for a change of subject, to save the situation. She chose music, and it was a good selection. The talk flowed pleasantly along, and things were soon in a satisfactory condition again. By and by Marget said –

»Surely, with your knowledge of music, you must be able to play. You do play, don't you?«

»Oh, certainly,« said Satan, »I am a good player.«

It was strange, the way he could say such things as that, and not exasperate people. It didn't seem conceited, in him, any more than it would seem conceited in a fish to say »Yes, I am a good swimmer.«

»Then do play something. The spinet is old and jingly-jangly and a little out of tune, but you won't mind that, will you.«

»Oh, no, I can make it musical. Let me see – what shall I play? I will play the poem – we will chase the bandits and rescue the captive girl.«

»Oh, that will be lovely! But can you make it up as you go along?«

»Yes, that is easy.«

I was in raptures to see him show off so. It was a great long poem, and just the thing. He sat down, and his fingers began to glide up and down the keys. It was a wonder to look at those two people sitting there, their lips parted and their breath hardly coming, the picture of astonishment. For this was no music such as they had ever heard before. It was not one instrument talking, it was a whole vague, dreamy, far-off orchestra – flutes, and violins, and silver horns, and drums, and cymbals, and all manner of other instruments, blending their soft tones in one rich stream of harmony. And it was mournful and touching; for this was the lover realising his loss. Then Satan began to chant the words of that poor fellow's lament – gentle and low; and the water rose in those two people's eyes, for they had heard no voice like that before, nor had any one heard the like of it except in heaven, where it came from. Little by little the music and the singing rose louder out of the distance – the lover was coming, he was on his way. And ever the singing and the music grew; and the storm began to gather and move toward us, with the wind sighing, the thunder muttering and the lightning playing; and on it came, just as if you could see it, and see the lover's horse racing and straining down in the pursuing front of it; and so, with a boom and a roar and a crash it burst upon us in one final grand explosion of noble sounds, and then the battle began, the victory was won, the storm passed, the morning came, and the lover lay dying in the maiden's arms, with her tears falling upon his face and the precious music of her endearments fading upon his ear.

It was finished, and we sat drowned in that ecstasy, and numb and dumb and only half conscious. When we came out of it Satan was gone. All sat thinking – going over the details of that marvelous picture painted in music, and trying to fix them in the memory for a perpetual possession. Finally Marget rose up, half dazed, and went to the spinet and stood looking at it. She struck a chord. Of course she got only the old effeminate tinkle-tankle the thing was born with. She turned away with a sigh.

»Ah, how did he do it?« she said.

»And how did he remember that long poem and never miss a word?« said Wilhelm. »I think he is the Devil.«

»Or an angel,« said Marget. »Tell me about him, Theodor; tell me all you know.«

But I got away; saying I should be punished if I was not home to supper.

Chapter 5

Next day everybody was talking – but under their breath. They were talking sharply critical talk about the witch-commission. »Why haven't the commission summoned Father Adolf for examination? if it were some friendless old woman who had done those Satanic miracles with the bowl, the bottle and the brazen balls, would they be so lax?« That is what the public said – in a whisper. Always confidentially; adding, »Please don't quote me – don't say I said anything.« You see they were prompt to blame the committee for being afraid of Father Adolf, yet at the same time they forgot to despise their own cowardice in not holding up the committee's hands and encouraging them to their duty. And they forgot that in despising the committee for being so brave when friendless old women were concerned, they were only despising themselves, for that was their own daring attitude toward friendless old women. Satan would have had a laugh at all this if he had been about. He would have said »It is like the human race; they have a fine large opinion of themselves, with nothing to found it on.«

I had five days' holiday, now, on my uncle's farm in the country, and when I got back another question was puzzling the people: »What has become of Father Adolf?« No one knew. He had not been seen since his performance on the tight rope.

Meantime Satan had been going about quite freely, getting acquainted with everybody, chatting with everybody, and charming the whole village and winning its gratitude by beguiling its mind from its troubles by diverting its interest to cheerfuler matters. Among his new acquaintances were the families of us boys, and their admiring talk of him was a great satisfaction to us, but we were not able to reveal our relations with him and boast about it, which we should have been so glad to do. My mother said to my father, with a shade of suspicion in her tone –

»There is something strange about him – I can't quite make him out. He is a gentleman – his clothes and his breeding show it; and yet he seems to associate with any kind of characters that come along, Rupert.«

»Yes, that comes out in his talk, Marie,« said my father.

»It is plain that he makes no sort of distinction between Fuchs the rich brewer and Hansel the loafing tinker – just as soon put in his time with the one as with the other.«

»Yes, and not only that, but he speaks of them as if the value of the two was the same – their value to the world and the village.«

»Well,« said my mother with a slight sniff, »maybe that is the right word, though I couldn't see that he attached anything that a body might really describe as value to either of them.«

My father had to grant that that was the correcter way of putting it.

»But he is young,« he added; »in years he is but a youth, and that is the prig-time of life. He will get over it when he is older and has found out something about life and the world. Experience will teach him a lot of things which he doesn't know now.«

My mother reflected a little, then said –

»But is he such a boy, Rupert? He looks it, and all that, but there's times when he doesn't talk like a boy. You said, yourself, that he was curiously well up in the law for such a lad, and that he talked about legal procedure like a person who had played the game.«

Mother had cornered him again. But she was not vain of it, being more or less accustomed to it, and always expecting him to be pretty random and to need watching when he wasn't on the Bench.

»He may be a good deal of a boy, and no doubt he is,« continued my mother, »but I can see that he is a superior one and smart beyond his years. In my opinion he is going to make his way in this world. Particularly if he goes into a profession.«

»He is studying for the ministry,« said my father.

My mother glanced up with interest.

»Orthodox, I suppose?« said she.

»As I understand it – yes.«

»Then he can't marry, and I hope he will not come here too much.«

»Why?«

»Because if I know the signs, our Lilly was interested in him the minute she saw him.«

»Is that so, Marie?«

»Love at first sight if I know the indications.«

»Marie, if your eyes and your instincts have not put you in error, this may be a serious matter.«

»Well, we shall see. Theodor, bring your sister.«

I fetched her, and on the way I told her what the occasion was, for we were loyal comrades and always posted each other when we could and when it might be useful. Mother stated her charge, and Lilly met it frankly and without embarrassment. She said she was interested in Philip Traum.

»Is he interested in you?«

»Ah, as to that, I do not know.«

»What do you think?«

»I think – well, I think he is not.«

»I am very, very glad to hear it, my child, and you will be glad, too, when you learn that he can never marry.«

I thought poor Lilly's cheek lost a little of its color.

»Can... never marry?« she said with a sort of gasp. »Why, mother?« and her eyes lost somewhat of their sparkle.

»Because he is studying for the ministry. He is going to be a priest.«

»That is a mistake, Mütterchen!« and the color came back and the eyes brightened; »he told me so himself.«

»He did, did he? Upon my word the confidences have begun to flow early! So he is not to be a priest. I do not know whether to be glad or sorry.« She looked bothered, and went on talking, with the look in her eyes of one who is thinking aloud without being conscious of it: »So beautiful, – such a gentleman – doubtless rich....« Then she broke out with »I do wish we could know something about him before this thing goes any further. Did he tell you anything about himself?... but that would be worth nothing; it might be all lies, of course.«

»Ah, no – no, mother, you wrong him, indeed you do. He is not capable of telling a lie.«

It took me so unprepared that the laugh was half out before I could stop it; but I turned it into a strangle, and no one knew it was anything but that.

»Oh, of course you would think he couldn't tell a lie, but that is no proof. What did he say about himself? Anything? Where does he live when he is at home?«

»His country seat –«

»He has a country seat... um... well, that is something, anyway. And I must say that his clothes and his style are a sort of – of –«

»Corroborative evidence,« suggested my father, helping her out.

»Yes. Where is his country seat?«

»In Austria or Germany, I think, but he didn't say.«

»What is the name of it?«

»Himmelreich.«

»The Kingdom of Heaven! What a modest name.«

»Blasphemous, you would better say,« said my father, with censure in his voice.

Mother went on questioning, and getting answers, and growing gradually reconciled to the perplexing situation and fortifying herself to entertain the idea of taking Satan into the family in the quality of son-in-law if the worst should come to the worst, so to speak; and finally she said –

»Well, there's one comfort: he is but a child, yet, and so are you; and we shall know all about him long before either of you is old enough to marry. I hope his character is good, and his morals; he seems to have a fair enough nature.«

»Oh, a beautiful nature, mother.«

»Of course you think so, but that is nothing to the point.«

»He is ever so kind-hearted, mother, and admires rattlesnakes.«

Mother came near fainting.

»Ad – mires rattlesnakes! Is he insane?«

»No. But he has read all about them, and admires their noble character.«

»Their noble character – the most infamous beast that crawls! What rubbish is this you are talking?«

»But mother, it is not so unreasonable when he explains it. He says this, to the credit of the rattlesnake: that he never takes advantage of any one, and has none of the instincts of an assassin; that he never strikes without first giving warning, and then does not strike if the enemy will keep his distance and not attack him. Isn't that true of the rattlesnake, papa?«

»Well – yes, it is. I had not thought of it before. The truth is, it is better morals than some men have.«

»I am so glad you think so, papa; it is what he says.«

»Oh, if he says it, that settles it,« said my mother, not well pleased to be caught in the minority. Then I could see she wanted a change of subject, and had her eye out for a pretext. She seemed to find it, and said, »There, you'd better run along and get at your embroidery; if you haven't finished it in thirty days –«

»It happens that it's already finished!« cried Lilly, without trying to conceal how vain she was about it.

»Finished? When?«

»Day before yesterday.«

»The idea! Very well, you can pull it all out and do it over again. And next time, do it right.«

»It is done right – I'll bring it and you can see for yourself,« and she ran and brought it.

It was a little picture, wrought in threads of silk and gold and silver. My mother was astonished, and said –

»Dear me, it is finer than the original – much finer. It is easily forty days' work. How is it that it took you ten days to merely start it, and only one day to complete it? And certainly the workmanship is beyond praise for grace and beauty and perfection. Dear, dear, the exquisite delicacy of it! It's just a dream!«

»It didn't take a day, it took only twenty minutes. He did it.«

My mother was astonished again, and asked dozens of questions, and got all the particulars, and grew more and more astonished all the time. Then she examined the work in this and that and the other light, hanging it on the wall, on a chair, spreading it on the table, her eyes speaking her wondering and worshiping delight in it, and her lips muttering all the time, »Marvelous creature, amazing creature,« and Lilly stood drinking it all in, happy and proud as a person could be.

»Well,« said mother at last, »it strikes a body dumb, I must say. He is a most singular creature, take him how you will. Embroiders like an angel, and admires rattlesnakes; a most unaccountable mixture in the matter of tastes. With his gifts he will get along. He doesn't need any better profession than this, and I hope he will stick to it, and make a name for himself. That is his intention, isn't it?«

»No,« said my sister, »he looks higher.«

»Higher? What is he going to be?«

»An author.«

»Author of what?«

»When he has finished his education at Heidelberg, he is going to write the history of the Roman jurisprudence and codify the Roman laws.«

»That kitten?«

»He is not a kitten, mamma, and it isn't right for you to call him such names.«

»Child, then – I'm not particular. But the bare idea of it – eight weeks old, so to speak, and already planning a flight like that; it does seem to me to smack of self-conceit. But no matter, it's no affair of mine, but I know one thing: if he were my child I would see to it that he stuck to his embroidery, that I would. There's the makings of a man in him if he had the right kind of a mother. Poor thing, it is a shame that he has been allowed to grow up in this helter-skelter fashion. His mother was a Pole, probably; I never did think much of those Poles.«

She had probably never had an opinion about the Poles before, but she was in the humor to hit somebody a thump and the Poles happened to turn up in her head just in time to be useful.

There was one very noticeable thing: in all this conversation the name of young Joseph Fuchs the brewer's son and heir was not mentioned once. It was another instance of the fact that wherever Satan came people dropped other interests out of their minds for the time and they could not seem to think of anything but him. It was the same now. Apparently no one had thought of Joseph Fuchs, not even my father; yet my father was a steady-going practical man, and a judge. This was strange, for Joseph was the best catch in the region, and was courting my sister, apparently with her approval, and certainly with the approval of papa and mamma. And yet all of a sudden comes this revolution, and my mother is dazzled, and turned topsy-turvy, and sets herself to contemplating Satan as a possible son-in-law, just as if there was no impropriety about it and nothing in the way; and if papa was surprised at it or dissatisfied, he gave no sign of it. It was Satan's influence; it had put the family under an enchantment. Not purposely, of course; for these people belonged to the human race and it would not have occurred to him to interest himself in their small affairs – unasked – one way or the other; either to help them or to hurt them. The villagers, high and low, were all bugs to him, and by his nature he seemed unable to take a bug seriously.

Joseph Fuchs was twenty-one and a good enough young fellow. He wouldn't ever be likely to set the river on fire, but that was nothing – there was plenty of company of this calibre, he was with the majority. He took an innocent pleasure in his clothes and in his father's riches, but that was natural enough in one whose people had been poor no long time back; and he was likely to take a seat which commanded a mirror if it came handy, but nobody minded it, since it did him good and harmed no one. These were the outside tinselings of his character, but there was gold back of them; he was honest and clean and true, and had warm affections and deep feelings.

Just as mamma had finished her slat at the Poles, Joseph came in. The effect was curious; the family looked a trifle startled; much as if he was a half-remembered disappearance come back out of the long ago. It took them half a moment or two to wake up and pull themselves together; then they set him a chair where he could face the mirror, and gave him welcome and asked after his people, and so worked off the restraint that was in the atmosphere and got things going in a more or less natural and comfortable fashion. Joseph had not noticed anything; it was not to be expected that he would. He did not even seem to notice that Lilly's welcome did not come from her eyes, according to custom, but only from her mouth; but I noticed it. I was sorry, too; for this was a man, and could meet her on her own human level, and make her brief breath of life happy, and share with her the peace and oblivion of the grave afterward; whereas in her innocence and ignorance she was fixing her heart of flesh upon a spirit, a wanderer of the skies, an object as unattainable as a comet and not more competent to meet the requirements of a this-world fellowship.

Being asked for the news, Joseph said –

»Oh, there isn't any, of course, except the new stranger. It's all Philip Traum here, Philip Traum there, Philip Traum yonder – nothing but Philip Traum; but I suppose that that is no news to you – of course it isn't. Father is infatuated with him; so is everybody – in fact I don't mind saying I include myself. Well, you know, he is a wonderful creature; now there's no getting around that.« His voice took on a grave tone, and he added, »That youth is doing things which can get him into trouble – can, I say, though I hope they won't.«

Lilly paled a little, and asked –

»What kind of things?«

»Well, things which the people can't understand; strange things which set them to shaking their heads and talking under their breath. This morning he jumped off the bridge and saved old Haas from drowning; did it without an effort, they say, fat and monstrous as old Haas is.«

»It was a brave fine act,« said Lilly; »surely there was nothing about that for people to criticise and shake their heads over.«

»Well, you see, that wasn't the worst of it – I mean, that wasn't all of it. They might have overlooked the miracle of strength displayed, but they say the water didn't wet his clothes. They couldn't account for that.«

»Do you believe the water didn't wet his clothes, Joseph?«

»Well, you know, they say it didn't. They believed it, I am quite sure of it; and the police must have believed it, too, for when they heard of it they arrested him.«

»What a shame! and he had been doing such a brave thing. Papa, you will order them to set him free – you can't refuse.«

»Don't you worry,« said Joseph, »he's already free.«

»How is that?«

»He wouldn't go with them.«

»Did they try to make him?« my father asked.

»Yes, but he only made fun of them. They tried to carry him off by force, but they hadn't the strength; they couldn't budge him from where he stood. Then they were afraid; for he said that if they tried it again he would throw them in the river. Now you know that for some reason or other they were afraid, for if they hadn't been they would have summoned more help, that being the usual course; but this they did not do. They only crossed themselves and looked foolish. Then they asked him to come to headquarters and fill up the usual form which requires a stranger to give his address, name, age, religion, occupation, whence he is from, how long he proposes to stay, and all that; and he wouldn't do it, and laughed at them again, and walked off about his business, no one interfering. He doesn't seem to be afraid of anybody or any thing. Oh, yes, everybody is talking! Among other things, about his chess and his music – have you heard of that?«

»No.«

»Well, then, it's because it only came out yesterday evening, I suppose; but it is started, now, and you'll hear plenty about it soon. It happened four or five days ago, and yesterday evening Wilhelm Meidling lost his temper and told about it. The way of it was this.«

Then Joseph told all about the four chess games and that wonderful music.

»Do you see?« he continued, »it's all as astounding as Father Adolf's bowl and bottle, and his jugglery and gymnastics in the market square. Very well. Put this and that together, and what do you arrive at? This: we all know Father Adolf is possessed of a devil; that being the case, what is the matter with Philip Traum?«

It was a hard hit and sudden. It made them all jump. But Joseph didn't see it; he went tinkling right along:

»Well, now, that's my news; what's yours? You know Philip the Magician, as I call him; have you been favored yet? has he been exhibiting here?«

It was another hit. It made them look unwell. Mother glanced at Lilly, and she slid the embroidery out of sight. Joseph was having a very successful time with his random gun, but he didn't know it.

Mother replied, a little stiffly, that Mr. Traum had not been exhibiting here. The others said nothing, and Joseph laughed pleasantly and remarked –

»A pity, too, for I suppose they'll burn him, soon, and then you'll naturally be sorry you haven't a sample to remember him by.«

»Don't talk so!« said Lilly. »Such things are not matter for jesting.«

»Well, then, I won't. But seriously, you know, people are talking, and he ought to be careful. That is what I tell him, and it's what father tells him; but he is so young and volatile and carefree that it hasn't any effect; he only laughs at it. Another thing: he has gone and made an enemy of the very man who could be most useful to him some day if he should get into trouble, and that man is Wilhelm Meidling, a good lawyer and a rising one.«

»How has that happened?«

»I don't know; but anyway it's so. Meidling let it out yesterday evening. Meidling is drinking again – I suppose you know that?«

Mother said she had heard something of the sort.

»Well, it's true. He drops in at the Golden Stag pretty often just here lately.«

»Ah, poor Marget!« said Lilly; »she has troubles enough, she might have been spared this one. She takes it hard – of course?«

»I suppose so, but one can't know – no one goes there.«

That hit Lilly, right in the heart – I could see it. She got up, saying –

»I am ashamed of myself; I must go to her; you must let me, mother. It is ungrateful in the happy to forsake the unhappy, whatever others may do.«

»No, no!« spoke up Joseph, alarmed; »none of that! Keep clear away from there – it is not safe!«

Poor fellow, he naturally supposed that he was the cause of her happiness, and in his pride and joy he put what should have been an appeal into the form of a kind of bridegroom-elect command, without thinking. Lilly straightened up, gave him a freezing look, and said –

»I beg your pardon. Who are you to dictate to me what I shall do?«

It was pitiful to see how he was crushed. He couldn't say a word, but only fumbled with his hands and looked stunned and vacant. Neither my father nor my mother seemed to know anything to do to relieve the situation; and so, when Wilhelm Meidling came walking in, now, he seemed like a kind of angel of deliverance, specially commissioned by Providence, and I think he hadn't any doubts that my parents were glad to see him. Lilly's welcome was not so pronounced, by a good deal; he had interrupted her project, and she had to put it by and sit down – which she did, but she couldn't have looked sociable and amiable if she had tried.

Five days had made a great and sorrowful change in Meidling. The old pleasant and friendly light had gone out of his eyes, his complexion was unwholesome, his skin puffy, his hands tremulous, his spirit moody and sour. He was a little under the influence of liquor, but not seriously so.

By way of a beginning, mother asked after Marget.

»I don't know how she is,« answered Wilhelm drearily, and with a sigh.

»You don't?« said mother, surprised at his manner and troubled by his statement. »Why, how does that come?«

»I don't suppose it would interest you,« he said, in that same dreary way, and looked around upon our faces wistfully, just as a person does who is carrying a burden upon his heart and finds it too heavy to bear, and is longing to talk about his trouble if he could find encouragement and a friendly ear. My mother saw and understood, for in her nature there was her sex's native sympathy for creatures in distress; she soon smoothed Wilhelm's path for him and made his traveling of it easy for him. Once more we heard about the chess games and the music; then this followed:

»Next day Traum was there again. More than half an hour; and did another amazing musical miracle. Marget read a tale to him out of a book – a prose one; then he sat down and played it and sang it, turning it into rhymed verse as he went along – a marvelous achievement, one is obliged to confess. In the parts where the tale was military and stirring, he filled the place with the crash of military bands; and through the music you could hear the hoof-beats of charging cavalry, the boom and thunder of artillery, the clash of steel, along with another sound that was heartbreaking – the perfectly counterfeited shrieks and cries and supplications of wounded and dying men. Such human voices! and they seemed to be in the room. Of course in the room, though really the room was a battlefield, and we saw the fight, as in a vision. When the scene of the tale changed and was soft and tender and romantic, with moonlight, and shimmering lakes, and the breath of flowers in the air, you heard only the distant strains of violins and oboes and aeolian harps. You understand, he finds all this variety of instruments in that old crazy spinet.

When he was taking his departure Marget forgot all decorum and begged him, supplicated him, implored him to stay. And that was not all: she told him she could not live with him out of her sight!«

It made the family jump; and Lilly turned a ghastly white, then flushed red and her eyes blazed. Her lips worked, but she held in. Joseph saw this, and there was a painful wonder in his eyes.

My mother showed distress. She was doing aimless things and fumbling with her hands like a person who has been knocked out of his bearings. She started to ask, in a hesitating way, if Philip was in love with Marget, but Wilhelm was not conscious of anything but his own affair; so he never heard her, but went right on:

»Traum wouldn't stay; but going out at the door, Marget still pleading, he said as indifferently as if he were asking the time of day, ›I can't stop now, but I'll come every day, if you like.‹«

»He doesn't love her!«

It was Lilly. It was out before she could stop it; her feelings had got the best of her. Joseph's head was bowed; if he had been looking at his face in the glass, he would have seen a spasm. Wilhelm looked at Lilly in a vague half-conscious way as if he sort of wondered why she should show so much interest, then he touched his dry lips with his tongue and went on:

»Marget's eyes were humid and brilliant, her face was flushed, she was in a state of exaltation, she was like a person intoxicated with adorable emotions. I said, ›You are in love with him.‹ She answered, ›I am, and I glory in it; I worship him!‹«

Lilly patted the floor with her foot, and the indignant breath came short through her parted lips, but she kept control of her tongue this time.

»I argued with her, reasoned with her, but it did no good. I said he was a stranger, an adventurer whom nobody knew. She said it was nothing to her; she loved him, and did not care who he was nor what he was. Still I reasoned and persuaded. I said he was possessed of a devil. She only said ›I would God I were possessed of the mate to it.‹ It was awful to hear her say that. I told her he was indifferent to her, and that he had not shown by a single word or sign that he cared for her in anything more than a friendly way. She said, ›I cannot help it, I love him; he does not love me now, but he is coming every day, and I have a right to hope and I will hope.‹ It was a bitter hour for me. We parted, without a caress; she did not even put out her hand; then her conscience smote her and she put it out, saying ›Forgive me – good-night – and let us be friends.‹

It is a madness, you see; it is enchantment – she is not to blame. I have not been back. He goes every day; I have it from Gottfried. Marget's love was my whole fortune; and it is lost.«

A silence fell. Every one sat as still as a statue. And the pride and the hopes and the happiness of each had received a stroke and been brought low. It was dismal, and like a funeral. Presently Wilhelm cast an appealing glance at my father, who started to get up, but Wilhelm motioned him back, as if to say, »Never mind – I know the way.« So he passed into the back room. The liquor was there.

Soon we heard a brisk step, and the next moment Satan came tripping in as cheerful as a bird, and his coming was like the sea-breeze invading a sick-room. Everybody's spirits rose, and the welcome that shone in Lilly's face was another pang for Joseph. Satan greeted every one heartily by name and handshake; and in the midst of it Wilhelm came reeling in with our butcher-knife in his hand. He flourished it, and shouted »Stand back!« which they naturally did, being taken by surprise, and the women screamed; and as Satan faced about, Wilhelm sprang at him and brought down the knife with a deadly lunge. But it only touched Satan's breast, and fell to the floor.

For just an instant Satan's eyes glowed with a dangerous light but it was gone as swiftly as it had come, and he was saying to the company –

»Don't be disturbed, he was only playing.«

Wilhelm looked perplexed and ashamed, and said haltingly – punctuating with a hiccup here and there –

»No, it is not entitled to so charitable a construction as that, and I make the humblest apologies to the company for my conduct. It was not myself that was acting, it is foreign to my nature; my sleep has been broken, I have been drinking more than is good for me, and for a moment my reason was affected, I think. I have done wrong, and am sorry. I had no right to proceed against his life.«

Satan could do what he pleased with any one. It pleased him to smooth away Wilhelm's feeling of humiliation, and soften his resentment, and banish the liquor-fogs from his brain and the dulness from his eye and the depression from his spirit, and restore to him his normal self and make him cheerful and comfortable; and by the crafts and witcheries of his tongue he did it. In no long time Wilhelm was discussing chess with him, the company were assisting in the debate, and things were going along as smoothly as ever. And at last when Wilhelm said he wished a record had been kept of those four remarkable games, so that he could lighten his dull hours by studying them, Satan said he would make the record.

»From memory?« my father asked, »after five days?« I think he meant it for irony; but irony was not his best hold.

Satan did not reply; but took some sheets of paper and filled them with the record of the games, in – well, in the time it takes to count ten, I should say, or perhaps fifteen. You could not see his hand move over the paper, it was just a whiz and a blur. Wilhelm examined the record in detail. Then,

»It is correct,« he said.

»Marvelous!« said the others.

»You've got your sample,« murmured Joseph. Lilly gave him a look which excused him from further comment.

Chapter 6

When I looked in on Lilly that night after she was abed, her eyes were red and she had been crying; but I found that the source of it was not Satan's indiscriminate ways, but only resentment against Marget for her attitude toward him. She thought it was scandalous in Marget to act so, considering that she already had a lover. I was surprised at this remark; it seemed illogical, and I said so.

»You are in love with Philip Traum yourself, and you had another lover.«

She flew out at me and said –

»The cases are not the same – they are far different.«

I suppose it was a mistake to ask her to point out the difference, but I did it, not knowing much about women then – nor now, probably. Her temper warmed up, and she said –

»If you can't see the difference, it would be useless for me to try to make you. Oh, you are so stupid!«

I could not see that that was an answer, and I said so. I said –

»Look at the cases – coolly and dispassionately – just as if it were other people, and you not concerned. There's Marget and Wilhelm, engaged; on the other side you and Joseph, as good as engaged. A stranger comes along, and you and Marget brush your lovers aside and fall in love with him. If it is scandalous in Marget, why then it seems to me –«

»Now that's enough – I don't want to hear any more about it. I never saw such a wandering mind.«

»Wandering mind, indeed! Where is my mind wandering, I'd like to know?«

»Yes, I should think you would. But don't try – nobody can find out. You'll only fatigue yourself.«

It was a shame to put me down like that and walk over me, so to speak, when I was certainly in the right. I ought to have known that when a woman gets her head set, particularly in a love matter, she hasn't any sense and isn't any more movable by argument than a stump is; but I was but a lad, and didn't know the crazy make of them.

I dropped the matter, since I had to, and then I went at the matter which I had mainly come to talk about. For Lilly's own happiness I wanted to save her while there was yet time, from irrevocably engaging her heart in this hopeless chase. So I led up to it in a grave and impressive introduction of some length, and when I believed I had sufficiently prepared her for the blow, I said –

»My dear, dear sister, be warned: he does not love you, and he never can.«

Storm-fires began to gather in her eyes, and she rose and sat up in the bed and looked me over, much as a comet looks a little dog over that has been trying to help it conduct its excursion in the safest way.

»You think so!« she said. »I wish to ask you a question or two – you who are so fond of reasoning and arguing and inferring, and think yourself so competent in such matters. What do you know about Philip Traum? Nothing. Are you intimate with him? Certainly not. Is your mind capable of intimacy with a mind like his? Hardly. Have you ever encountered such a mind before? Answer me.«

»Well – no.«

»Is there any one else in the world who can bring out of a simpering old spinet the music of the spheres?«

»No.«

»Is there any one else who can carry four games of chess in his memory a week? Or transmute prose into poetry without reflection or preparation? Or turn a would-be assassin into a fireside comrade in ten minutes by the clock? Or do this?« and she drew that embroidery from under her pillow and displayed it. »Come – infer me an inference. What do you infer from these things?«

»Well, that he – that he is not like anybody else.«

She snatched at that as triumphantly as if I had given my whole case away:

»You've said it! Very well, then, since he is not like anybody else, it is argument that he is governed by laws that are not the laws which govern other people's actions. Do we know what the laws are which govern him?«

Of course I knew, but it was not my privilege to let out that fact, so I blinked the truth and said no.

»Very well, then, you see where you have landed. You don't know, and can't know, that he will never love me; so you need not bother yourself any more about the matter. Through my sympathies, my perceptions and my love I know him; know him as no one else knows him; know him as no one else can ever know him. And you shall not take my golden hope from me – no one shall! He will love me yet, and only me.«

There was a glory in her eyes that made her beautiful. I had not the heart to spoil it; so I kept back the words that were upon my lips: »Marget is probably saying these same things herself.«

I went to my bed with heavy thoughts. What a lot of dismal haps had befallen the village, and certainly Satan seemed to be the father of the whole of them: Father Peter in prison, on account of the money laid in his way by Satan, which furnished Father Adolf the handy pretext he needed; Marget's household shunned and under perilous suspicion on account of that cat's work – cat furnished by Satan; Father Adolf acquiring a frightful and odious reputation, and likely to be burnt at the stake presently – Satan responsible for it; my parents worried, perplexed, distressed about their daughter's new love-freak and the doubtfulness of its outlook; Joseph crushed and shamed; Wilhelm's heart broken and dissipation laying its blight upon his character, his ambition and his fair repute; Marget gone silly, and our Lilly following after; the whole village prodded and pestered into a pathetic delirium about non-existent witches and quaking in its shoes: the whole wide wreck and desolation of hearts and hopes and industries the work of Satan's enthusiastic diligence and morbid passion for business. And he, the author of all the trouble, was the only person concerned that got any rapture out of it. By his spirits one would think he was grateful to be alive and improving things.

I fell asleep to pleasant music presently – the patter of rain upon the panes and the dull growling of distant thunder. Away in the night Satan came and roused me and said –

»Come with me. Where shall we go?«

»Anywhere – so it is with you.«

Then there was a fierce glare of sunlight, and he said –

»This is China.«

That was a grand surprise, and made me sort of drunk with vanity and gladness to think I had come so far – and so much, much further than anybody else in our village, including Bartel Sperling, who had such a great opinion of his travels. We buzzed around over that Empire for more than half an hour and saw the whole of it. It was wonderful, the spectacles we saw; and some were beautiful, others too horrible to think. For instance – however, I will go into that by and by, and also why Satan chose China for this excursion instead of another place – it would interrupt my tale to do it now. Finally we stopped flitting, and lit.

We sat upon a mountain commanding a vast landscape of mountain-range and gorge and valley and plain and river, with cities and villages slumbering in the sunlight, and a glimpse of blue sea on the further verge. It was a tranquil and dreamy picture, beautiful to the eye and restful to the spirit. If we could only make a change like that whenever we wanted to, the world would be easier to live in than it is, for change of scene shifts the mind's burdens to the other shoulder and banishes old shop-worn wearinesses from mind and body both.

We talked together, and I had the idea of trying to reform Satan and persuade him to lead a better life. I told him about all those things he had been doing, and begged him to be more considerate and stop making people unhappy. I said I knew he did not mean any harm, but that he ought to stop and consider the possible consequences of an act before launching it in that impulsive and random way of his; then he would not make so much trouble. He was not hurt by this plain speech, he only looked amused and surprised, and said –

»What, I do random things? Indeed I never do. I stop and consider possible consequences? Where is the need? I know what the consequences are going to be – always.«

»Oh, Satan, then how could you do those things?«

»Well, I will tell you, and you must understand it if you can. You belong to a singular race. Every man is a suffering-machine and a happiness-machine combined. The two functions work together harmoniously, with a fine and delicate precision, on the give-and-take principle. For every happiness turned out in the one department the other one stands ready to modify it with a sorrow or a pain – maybe a dozen. In most cases the man's life is about equally divided between happiness and unhappiness. When this is not the case the unhappiness predominates – always; never the other. Sometimes a man's make and disposition are such that his misery-machinery is able to do nearly all the business. Such a man goes through life almost ignorant of what happiness is. Everything he touches, everything he does, brings a misfortune upon him. You have seen such people? To that kind of a person life is not an advantage, is it? it is only a disaster. Sometimes, for an hour's happiness a man's machinery makes him pay years of misery. Don't you know that? It happens every now and then. I will give you a case or two, presently. Now the people of your village are nothing to me – you know that, don't you?«

I did not like to speak out too flatly, so I only said I had suspected it.

»Well, it is true that they are nothing to me. It is not possible that they should be. The difference between them and me is abysmal, immeasurable. They have no intellect.«

»No intellect?«

»Nothing that resembles it. At a future time I will examine what man calls his mind and give you the details of that chaos, then you will see and understand. Men have nothing in common with me – there is no point of contact. They have foolish little feelings, and foolish little vanities and impertinences and ambitions, their foolish little life is but a laugh, a sigh, and extinction; and they have no sense. Only the Moral Sense. I will show you what I mean. Here is a red spider, not so big as a pin's head; can you imagine an elephant being interested in him; caring whether he is happy or isn't; or whether he is wealthy or poor; or whether his sweetheart returns his love or not; or whether his mother is sick or well; or whether he is looked up to in society or not; or whether his enemies will smite him or his friends desert him; or whether his hopes will suffer blight or his political ambitions fail; or whether he shall die in the bosom of his family or neglected and despised in a foreign land? These things can never be important to the elephant, they are nothing to him, he cannot shrink his sympathies to the microscopic size of them. Man is to me as the red spider is to the elephant. The elephant has nothing against the spider, he cannot get down to that remote level – I have nothing against man. The elephant is indifferent, I am indifferent. The elephant would not take the trouble to do the spider an ill turn; if he took the notion he might do him a good turn, if it came in his way and cost nothing. I have done men good service, hut no ill turns.

The elephant lives a century, the red spider a day; in power, intellect and dignity, the one creature is separated from the other by a distance which is simply astronomical. Yet in these and in all qualities man is immeasurably further below me than is the wee spider below the elephant.

Man's mind clumsily and tediously and laboriously patches little trivialities together, and gets a result – such as it is. My mind creates! Do you get the force of that? Creates anything it desires – and in a moment. Creates without materials; creates fluids, solids, colors – anything, everything – out of the airy nothing which is called Thought. A man imagines a silk thread, imagines a machine to make it, imagines a picture, then by weeks of labor embroiders it on a canvas with the thread. I think the whole thing, and in a moment it is before you – created.

I think a poem – music – the record of a game of chess – anything – and it is there. This is the immortal mind – nothing is beyond its reach. Nothing can obstruct my vision – the rocks are transparent to me, and darkness is daylight. I do not need to open a book; I take the whole of its contents into my mind at a single glance, through its cover; and in a million years I could not forget a single word of it, or its place in the volume. Nothing goes on in the skull of any man, bird, fish, insect or other creature which can be hidden from me. I pierce the learned man's brain with a single glance, and the treasures which cost him three-score years to accumulate are mine; he can forget, and he does forget, but I retain.

Now then, I perceive by your thoughts that you are understanding me fairly well. Let us proceed. Circumstances might so fall out that the elephant could like the spider – supposing he can see it – but he could not love it. His love is for his own kind – for his equals. An angel's love is sublime, adorable, divine, beyond the imagination of man – infinitely beyond it! But it is limited to his own august order. If it fell upon one of your race for only an instant it would consume its object to ashes.«

I thought of poor Marget and poor Lilly.

»Give yourself no uneasiness,« he said, »they are safe. No, we cannot love men, but we can be harmlessly indifferent to them; we can also like them, sometimes. I like you and the boys, I like Father Peter, and for your sakes I am doing all these things for the villagers.«

He saw that I was thinking a sarcasm, and he explained his position.

»I have wrought well for the villagers, though it does not look like it on the surface. Your race never know good fortune from ill. They are always mistaking the one for the other. It is because they cannot see into the future. What I am doing for the villagers will bear good fruit some day; in some cases to themselves, in others to unborn generations of men. No one will ever know that I was the cause, but it will be none the less true for all that. Among you boys you have a game: you stand a row of bricks on end a few inches apart; you push a brick, it knocks its neighbor over, the neighbor knocks over the next brick – and so on till all the row is prostrate. That is human life. A child's first act knocks over the initial brick, and the rest will follow inexorably. If you could see into the future, as I can, you would see everything that was ever going to happen to that creature; for nothing can change the order of its life after the first event has determined it. That is, nothing will change it, because each act unfailingly begets an act, that act begets another, and so on to the end, and the seer can look forward down the line and see just when each act is to have birth, from cradle to grave.«

»Does God order the career?«

»Foreordain it? No. The man's circumstances and environment order it. His first act determines the second and all that follow after. But suppose, for argument's sake, that the man should skip one of these acts; an apparently trifling one, for instance: suppose it had been appointed that on a certain day, at a certain hour and minute and second and fraction of a second he should snatch at a fly, and he didn't snatch at the fly. That man's career would change utterly, from that moment; thence to the grave it would be wholly different from the career which his first act as a child had arranged for him. Indeed it might be that if he had snatched at the fly he would have ended his career on a throne; and that omitting to do it would set him upon a career that would lead to beggary and a pauper's grave. For instance: if at any time – say in boyhood – Columbus had skipped the triflingest little link in the chain of acts projected and made inevitable by his first childish act, it would have changed his whole subsequent life and he would have become a priest and died obscure in an Italian village, and America would not have been discovered for two centuries afterward. I know this. To skip any one of the billion acts in Columbus's chain would have wholly changed his life. I have examined his billion of possible careers, and in only one of them occurs the discovery of America. You people do not suspect that all of your acts are of one size and importance, but it is true: to snatch at an appointed fly is as big with fate for you as is any other appointed act –«

»As the conquering of a continent, for instance?«

»Yes.«

»Now then, no man ever does drop a link – the thing has never happened; even when he is trying to make up his mind as to whether he will do a thing or not, that itself is a link, an act, and has its proper place in his chain; and when he finally decides and acts, that also was the thing which he was absolutely certain to do. You see, now, that a man will never drop a link in his chain. He cannot. If he made up his mind to try, that project would itself be an unavoidable link – a thought bound to occur to him at that precise moment, and made certain by the first act of his babyhood.«

It seemed so dismal!

»He is a prisoner for life,« I said, sorrowfully, »and cannot get free.«

»No, of himself he cannot get away from the consequences of his first childish act. But I can free him.«

I looked up wistfully.

»I have changed the careers of a number of your villagers.«

I tried to thank him, but found it difficult, and let it drop.

»I shall make some other changes. You know that little Lisa Brandt.«

»Oh, yes, everybody does. My mother says she is so sweet and so lovely that she is not like any other child. She says she will be the pride of the village when she grows up; and its idol, too, just as she is now.«

»I will change her future.«

»Make it better?« I asked, with some misgivings.

»Yes. And I will change the future of Nikolaus.«

I was glad, this time, and said –

»I don't need to ask about his case; you will be sure to do generously by him.«

»It is my intention.«

Straight off I was building that great future of Nicky's in my imagination, and had already made a renowned General of him and Hofmeister at the Court, when I noticed that Satan was waiting for me to get ready to listen again. I was ashamed of having exposed my cheap imaginings to him, and was expecting some sarcasms, but it did not happen. He proceeded with his subject:

»Nicky's appointed life is 62 years.«

»That's grand!« I said.

»Lisa's, 36. But as I told you, I shall change their lives. Two minutes and a quarter from now Nikolaus will wake out of his sleep and find the rain blowing in. It was appointed that he should turn over and go to sleep again. But I have appointed that he shall get up and close the window first. That trifle will change his career entirely. He will rise in the morning two minutes later than the chain of his life had appointed him to rise. By consequence, thenceforth nothing will ever happen to him in accordance with the details of the old chain.«

He took out his watch and sat looking at it a few moments, then said –

»Nikolaus has risen to close the window. His life is changed, his new career has begun. There will be consequences.«

It made me feel creepy, it was so uncanny.

»But for this change certain things would happen twelve days from now. For instance, Nikolaus would save Lisa from drowning. He would arrive on the scene at exactly the right moment – four minutes past 10 – the long-ago appointed instant of time – and the water would be shoal, the achievement easy and certain. But he will arrive some seconds too late, now; Lisa will have struggled into deeper water. He will do his best, but both will drown.«

»Oh, Satan, oh, dear Satan,« I cried, with the tears rising in my eyes, »save them! don't let it happen, I can't bear to lose Nikolaus, he is my loving playmate and friend; and think of Lisa's poor mother!«

I clung to him and begged and pleaded, but he was not moved. He made me sit down again, and told me I must hear him out.

»I have changed Nikolaus's life, and this has changed Lisa's. If I had not done this, Nikolaus would save Lisa; then he would catch cold from his drenching; one of your race's fantastic and desolating scarlet fevers would follow, with pathetic after-effects: for forty-six years he would lie in his bed a paralytic log, deaf, dumb, blind, and praying night and day for the blessed relief of death. Shall I change his life back?«

»Oh, no! Oh, not for the world, not for the world! In charity and pity, leave it as it is.«

»It is best so. I could not have changed any other link in his life and done him so good service. He had a billion possible careers, but not one of them was worth living; they were charged full with miseries and disasters. But for my intervention he would do his brave deed twelve days from now, – a deed begun and ended in six minutes – and get for all reward those forty-six years of sorrow and suffering I told you of. It is one of the cases I was thinking of a while ago when I said that sometimes an act which brings the actor an hour's happiness and self-satisfaction is paid for – or punished? – by years of suffering.«

I wondered what poor little Lisa's early death would save her from. He answered the thought:

»From ten years of pain and slow recovery from an accident, and then from nineteen years of pollution, shame, depravity, crime, ending with death at the hands of the executioner. Twelve days hence she will die; her mother would save her life if she could. Am I not kinder than her mother?«

»Yes – oh, indeed yes; and wiser.«

»Father Peter's case is coming on, presently. He will be acquitted, through unassailable proofs of his innocence.«

»Why Satan, how can that be? Do you really think it?«

»Indeed I know it. His good name will be restored, and the rest of his life will be happy.«

»I can believe it. To restore his good name will have that effect.«

»His happiness will not proceed from that cause. I shall change his life that day, for his good. He will never know his good name has been restored.«

In my mind – and modestly – I asked for particulars, but Satan paid no attention to my thought. Next, my mind wandered to Father Adolf, and I wondered where he might be.

»In the moon,« said Satan, with a fleeting sound which I believed was a chuckle. »I've got him on the cold side of it, too. He doesn't know where he is, and is not having a pleasant time; still, it is good enough for him. I shall need him presently; then I shall bring him back and possess him again. He has a long and cruel and odious life before him, but I will change that, for I have no feeling against him and am quite willing to do him a kindness. I think I will get him burnt.«

He had such strange notions of kindness. But angels are made so, and do not know any better. Their ways are not like our ways; and besides, human beings are nothing to them; they think they are only freaks.

It seemed to me odd that he should put the priest so far away; he could have dumped him in Germany just as well, where he would be handy.

»Far away?« said Satan. »To me no place is far away; distance does not exist, for me. The sun is less than a hundred million miles from here, and the light that is falling upon us has taken eight minutes to come; but I can make that flight, or any other, in a fraction of time so minute that it cannot be measured by a watch. I have but to think the journey, and it is accomplished.«

I held out my hand and said –

»The light lies upon it; think it into a glass of wine, Satan.«

He did it. I drank the wine.

»Break the glass,« he said.

I broke it.

»There – you see it is real. The villagers thought the brass balls were magic-stuff and as perishable as smoke. They were afraid to touch them. You are a curious lot – your race. But come along, I have business. I will put you to bed.« Said and done. Then he was gone; but his voice came back to me through the rain and darkness, saying, »Yes, tell Seppi, but no other.«

It was the answer to my thought.

Sleep would not come. It was not because I was proud of my travels and excited about having been around the big world to China, and feeling contemptuous of Bartel Sperling, ›the traveler,‹ as he called himself, and looked down upon us others because he had been to Vienna once and was the only Eseldorf boy who had made such a journey and seen the world's wonders. At another time that would have kept me awake, but it did not affect me now. No, my mind was filled with Nikolaus, my thoughts ran upon him only, and the good days we had seen together at romps and frolics in the woods and the fields and the river in the long summer days, and skating and sliding in the winter when our parents thought we were at school. And now he was going out of this young life, and the summers and winters would come and go, and we others would rove and play as before, but his place would be vacant, we should see him no more. To-morrow he would not suspect, but would be as he had always been, and it would shock me to hear him laugh, and see him do lightsome and frivolous things, for to me he would be a corpse, with waxen hands and dull eyes, and I should see the shroud around his face; and next day he would not suspect, nor the next, and all the time his handful of days would be wasting swiftly away and that awful thing coming nearer and nearer, his fate closing steadily around him and no one knowing it but Seppi and me. Twelve days – only twelve days. It was awful to think of. I noticed that in my thoughts I was not calling him by his familiar names, Nick and Nicky, but was speaking of him by his full name, and reverently, as one speaks of the dead. Also, as incident after incident of our comradeship came thronging into my mind out of the past, I noticed that they were mainly cases where I had wronged him or hurt him, and they rebuked me and reproached me, and my heart was wrung with remorse, just as it is when we remember our unkindnesses to friends who have passed behind the veil, and we wish we could have them back again, if for only a moment, so that we could go on our knees to them and say »Have pity, and forgive.«

Once when we were nine years old he went a long errand of nearly two miles for the fruiterer, who gave him a splendid big apple for reward, and he was flying home with it almost beside himself with astonishment and delight, and I met him, and he let me look at the apple, not thinking of treachery, and I ran off with it, eating it as I ran, he following me and begging; and when he overtook me I offered him the core, which was all that was left; and I laughed. Then he turned away, crying, and said he had meant to give it to his little sister. That smote me, for she was slowly getting well of a sickness, and it would have been a proud moment for him, to see her joy and surprise and have her caresses. But I was ashamed to say I was ashamed, and only said something rude and mean, to pretend I did not care, and he made no reply in words, but there was a wounded look in his face as he turned away toward his home which rose before me many times in after years, in the night, and reproached me and made me ashamed again. It had grown dim in my mind, by and by, then it disappeared; but it was back, now, and not dim.

Once at school, when we were eleven, I upset my ink and spoiled four copy-books, and was in danger of severe punishment; but I put it upon him, and he got the whipping.

And only last year I had cheated him in a trade, giving him a large fish-hook which was partly broken through, for three small sound ones. The first fish he caught broke the hook, but he did not know I was blameable, and he refused to take back one of the small hooks which my conscience forced me to offer him, but said »a trade is a trade; the hook was bad, but that was not your fault.«

No, I could not sleep. These little shabby wrongs upbraided me and tortured me; and with a pain much sharper than one feels when the wrongs have been done to the living. Nikolaus was living, but no matter: he was to me as one already dead. The wind was still moaning about the eaves, the rain still pattering upon the panes.

In the morning I sought out Seppi and told him. It was down by the river. His lips moved, but he did not say anything, he only looked dazed and stunned, and his face turned very white. He stood like that, a few moments, the tears welling into his eyes, then he turned away and I locked my arm in his and we walked along thinking, but not speaking. We crossed the bridge and wandered through the meadows and up among the hills and the woods, and at last the talk came, and flowed freely; and it was all about Nikolaus and was a recalling of the life we had lived with him. And every now and then Seppi said, as if to himself:

»Twelve days! – less than twelve.«

We said we must be with him all the time; we must have all of him we could, the days were precious, now. Yet we did not go to seek him. It would be like meeting the dead, and we were afraid. We did not say it, but that was what we were feeling. And so it gave us a shock when we turned a curve and came upon Nikolaus face to face. He shouted gaily –

»Hi-hi! what is the matter? Have you seen a ghost?«

We couldn't speak, but there was no occasion; he was willing to talk for us all, for he had just seen Satan and was in high spirits about it. Satan had told him about our trip to China, and he had begged Satan to take him a journey, and Satan had promised. It was to be a far journey, and wonderful and beautiful; and Nikolaus had begged him to take us, too, but he said no, he would take us some day, maybe, but not now. Satan would come for him on the 13th, and Nikolaus was already counting the hours, he was so impatient.

That was the fatal day. We were already counting the hours, too.

We wandered many a mile, always following paths which had been our favorites from the days when we were little, and always we talked about the old times. All the blitheness was with Nikolaus; we others could not shake off our depression. Our tone toward Nikolaus was so strangely gentle and tender and yearning that he noticed it, and was pleased; and we were constantly doing him deferential little offices of courtesy, and saying, »Wait, let me do that for you,« and that pleased him, too. I gave him seven fish-hooks – all I had – and made him take them; and Seppi gave him his new knife and a humming-top painted red and yellow – atonements for swindles practised upon him formerly, as I learned later, and probably no longer remembered by Nikolaus now. These things touched him, and he said he could not have believed that we loved him so; and his pride in it and gratefulness for it cut us to the heart we were so undeserving of them. When we parted at last, he was radiant and said he had never had such a happy day.

As we walked along homewards, Seppi said –

»We always prized him, but never so much as now, when we are going to lose him.«

Chapter 7

Next day and every day we spent all of our spare time with Nikolaus; and also added to it time which we (and he) stole from work and other duties, and this cost the three of us some sharp scoldings and some threats of punishment. Every morning two of us woke with a start and a shudder, saying, as the days flew along, »Only ten days left;« »only nine days left;« »only eight;« »only seven.« Always it was narrowing. Always Nikolaus was gay and happy, and always puzzled because we were not. He wore his invention to the bone, trying to invent ways to cheer us up, but it was only a hollow success; he could see that our jollity had no heart in it, and that the laughs we broke into came up against some obstruction or other and suffered damage and decayed into a sigh. He tried to find out what the matter was, so that he could help us out of our trouble or make it lighter by sharing it with us; so we had to tell many lies to deceive him and appease him.

But the most distressing thing of all was, that he was always making plans, and often they went beyond the 13th! Whenever that happened, it made us groan in spirit. All his mind was fixed upon finding some way to conquer our depression and cheer us up; and at last, when he had but three days to live, he fell upon the right idea and was jubilant over it: a boys' and girls' frolic and dance in the woods, up there where we first met Satan, and this was to occur on the 14th. It was ghastly; for that was his funeral-day. We couldn't venture a protest; it would only have brought a ›Why?‹ which we could not answer. He wanted us to help him invite his guests, and we did it; one can refuse nothing to a dying friend. But it was dreadful; for really we were inviting them to his funeral.

It was an awful eleven days; and yet, with a lifetime stretching back between to-day and then, they are still a grateful memory to me, and beautiful. In effect they were days of companionship with one's sacred dead, and I have known no comradeship that was so close or so precious. We clung to the hours and the minutes, counting them as they wasted away, and parting with them with that pain and bereavement which a miser feels who sees his hoard filched from him coin by coin by robbers and is helpless to prevent it.

When the evening of the last day came we stayed out too long; Seppi and I were in fault for that, we could not bear to part with Nikolaus; so it was very late when we left him at his door. We lingered near, a while, listening; and that happened which we were fearing. His father gave him the promised punishment, and we heard his shrieks. But we listened only a moment, then hurried away, remorseful for this thing which we had caused. And sorry for the father, too; our thought being, »If he only knew – if he only knew!«

In the morning Nikolaus did not meet us at the appointed place, so we went to his home to see what the matter was. His mother said –

»His father is out of all patience with these goings on, and will not have any more of it. Half the time when Nick is needed he is not to be found; then it turns out that he has been gadding around with you two. His father gave him a flogging last night. It always grieved me before, and many's the time I have begged him off and saved him, but this time he appealed to me in vain, for I was out of patience myself.«

»I wish you had saved him just this one time,« I said, my voice trembling a little, »it would ease a pain in your heart to remember it some day.«

She was ironing, at the time, and her back was partly toward me. She turned about with a startled or wondering look in her face and said –

»What do you mean by that?«

I was not prepared, and didn't know anything to say, so it was awkward, for she kept looking at me; but Seppi was alert and spoke up:

»Why of course it would be pleasant to remember; for, the very reason we were out so late was that Nikolaus got to telling us how good you are to him, and how he never got whipped when you were by to save him; and he was so full of it, and we so full of the interest of it that none of us noticed how late it was getting.«

»Did he say that? did he?« and she put her apron to her eyes.

»You can ask Theodor – he will tell you the same.«

»It is a dear good lad, my Nick,« she said. »I am sorry I let him get whipped; I will never do it again. To think – all the time I was sitting here last night fretting and angry at him he was loving me and praising me! Dear, dear, if we could only know! then we shouldn't ever go wrong; but we are only poor dumb beasts groping around and making mistakes. I shan't ever think of last night without a pang.«

She was like all die rest; it seemed as if nobody could open a mouth, in these wretched days, without saying something that made us shiver. They were ›groping around,‹ and did not know what sorrowfully true things they were saying by accident.

Seppi asked if Nikolaus might go out with us.

»I am sorry,« she answered, »but he can't. To punish him further, his father doesn't allow him to go out of the house to-day.«

We had a great hope! I saw it in Seppi's eyes. We thought, »if he cannot leave the house, he cannot be drowned.« Seppi asked – to make sure –

»Must he stay in all day, or only the morning?«

»All day. It's such a pity, too; it's a beautiful day, and he is so unused to being shut up. But he is busy planning his party, and maybe that is company for him. I do hope he isn't too lonesome.«

Seppi saw that in her eye which emboldened him to ask if we might go up and help him pass his time.

»And welcome!« she said, right heartily. »Now I call that real friendship, when you might be abroad in the fields and the woods, having a happy time. You are good boys, I'll allow that, though you don't always find satisfactory ways of proving it. Take these cakes – for yourselves – and give him this one, from his mother.«

The first thing we noticed when we entered Nikolaus's room was the clock. A quarter to 10. Could that be correct? Only such a few minutes left to live! I felt a contraction at my heart. Nikolaus jumped up and gave us a glad welcome. He was in good spirits over his plannings for his party, and had not been lonesome.

»Sit down,« he said, »and look at what I've been doing. And I've finished a kite that you will say is a daisy. It's drying, in the kitchen; I'll fetch it.«

He had been spending his penny-savings in fanciful trifles of various kinds, to go as prizes in the games, and they were marshaled with fine and showy effect upon the table. He said –

»Examine them at your leisure while I get mother to touch up the kite with her iron if it isn't dry enough yet.«

Then he tripped out and went clattering down stairs, whistling »Die Trommeln sagen pom-pom-pom.«

We did not look at the things; we couldn't take any interest in anything but the clock. We sat staring at it in silence, listening to the ticking, and every time the minute-hand jumped, we nodded recognition – one minute fewer to cover in the race for life or for death. Finally Seppi drew a deep breath and said –

»Two minutes to ten. Seven minutes more and he will pass the death-point. Theodor, he is going to be saved! he's going to –«

»Hush, I'm on needles! – watch the clock, and keep still.«

Five minutes more. We were panting, with the strain and the excitement.

Another three minutes, and there was a footstep on the stair.

»Saved!« and we jumped up and faced the door.

The old mother entered, bringing the kite.

»Isn't it a beauty?« she said. »And dear me, how he has slaved over it; ever since daylight, I think, and only finished it a while before you came.« She stood it against the wall, and stepped back to take a view of it. »He drew the pictures his own self, and I think they are very good. The church isn't so very good, I'll have to admit, but look at the bridge – any one can recognise the bridge in a minute. He asked me to bring it up.... Dear me, it's seven minutes past ten, and I –«

»But where is he?«

»He? Oh, he'll be here soon – he's gone out a minute.«

»Gone out?«

»Yes. Just as he came down stairs little Lisa's mother came in and said the child had wandered off somewhere, and as she was a little uneasy I told Nikolaus to never mind about his father's orders – go and look her up.... Why, how white you two do look; I do believe you are sick. Sit down; I'll fetch you something. That cake has disagreed with you. It is a little heavy, but I thought –«

She disappeared without finishing her sentence, and we hurried at once to the back window and looked toward the river. There was a great crowd at the other end of the bridge, and people were flying toward that point from every direction.

»Oh, it is all over – poor Nikolaus! Why did she let him get out of the house!«

»Come away,« said Seppi, half sobbing, »come quick – we can't bear to meet her – in five minutes she will know.«

But we were not to escape. She came upon us at the foot of the stairs, with her cordials in her hand, and made us come in and sit down and take the medicine. Then she watched the effect, and it did not satisfy her; so she made us wait longer, and kept upbraiding herself for giving us the unwholesome cake.

Presently the thing happened which we were dreading. There was a sound of tramping and scraping outside, and a crowd came solemnly in, with heads uncovered, and laid the two drowned bodies on the bed.

»Oh, my God!« that poor mother cried out, and fell on her knees, and put her arms about her dead boy and began to cover the wet face with kisses. »Oh, it was I that sent him, and I have been his death. If I had obeyed, and kept him in the house, this would not have happened. And I am rightly punished – I was cruel to him last night, and him begging me, his own mother, to be his friend.«

And so she went on and on, and all the women cried, and pitied her, and tried to comfort her, but she could not forgive herself and could not be comforted, and kept on saying if she had not sent him out he would be alive and well now, and she was the cause of his death.

It shows how foolish people are when they blame themselves for anything they have done. Satan knows, and he said nothing happens that your first act hasn't arranged to happen and made inevitable; and so, of your own motion you can't ever alter the scheme or do a thing that will break a link. Next we heard screams, and Frau Brandt came wildly plowing and plunging through the crowd with her dress in disorder and her hair flying loose, and flung herself upon her dead child with moans and kisses and pleadings and endearments; and by and by rose up almost exhausted with her outpourings of passionate emotion, and clenched her fist and lifted it toward the sky, and her tear-drenched face grew hard and resentful, and she said –

»For nearly two weeks I have had dreams and presentiments and warnings that death was going to strike what was most precious to me, and day and night and night and day I have groveled in the dirt before Him praying Him to have pity on my innocent child and save it from harm – and here is His answer!«

Why, He had saved it from harm – but she did not know.

She wiped the tears from her eyes and cheeks, and stood awhile gazing down at the child and caressing its face and its hair with her hand, then she spoke again in that bitter tone –

»But in His hard heart is no compassion. I will never pray again.«

She gathered her dead child to her bosom and strode away, the crowd falling back to let her pass, and smitten dumb by the awful words they had heard. Ah, that poor woman! It is as Satan said, we do not know good fortune from bad, and are always mistaking the one for the other. Many a time, since then, I have heard people pray to God to spare the life of sick persons, but I have never done it.

Both funerals took place at the same time in our little church next day. Everybody was there, including the party-guests. Satan was there, too; which was proper, for it was on account of his efforts that the funerals had happened. Nikolaus had departed this life without absolution, and a collection was taken up for masses, to get him out of purgatory. Only two-thirds of the required money was gathered, and the parents were going to try to borrow the rest, but Satan furnished it. He told us privately that there was no purgatory, now, it having been discarded because it did not pay, there being none but Catholic custom for it; but he had contributed in order that Nikolaus's parents and their friends might be saved from worry and distress. We thought it very good of him, but he said money did not cost him anything.

At the graveyard the body of little Lisa was seized for debt by a carpenter to whom the mother owed fifty groschen for work done the year before. She had never been able to pay this, and was not able now. The carpenter took the corpse home and kept it four days in his cellar, the mother weeping and imploring about his house all the time; then he buried it in his brother's cattle-yard, without religious ceremonies. It drove the mother wild with grief and shame, and she forsook her work and went daily about the town cursing the carpenter and blaspheming the laws and the Emperor and the church, and it was pitiful to see. Seppi asked Satan to interfere, but he said that the carpenter and the rest were members of the human race and were acting quite neatly, for that species of animal. He would interfere if he found a horse acting in such a way, and we must inform him when we came across that kind of a horse doing that kind of a human thing, so that he could stop it. We believed this was sarcasm, for of course there wasn't any such horse.

But after a few days we found that we could not abide that poor woman's distress; so we begged Satan to examine her several possible careers, and see if he could not change her, to her profit, to a new one. He said the longest of her careers as they now stood gave her forty-two years to live, and her shortest one twenty-nine, and that both were charged with grief and hunger and cold and pain. The only improvement he could make would be to enable her to skip a certain link three minutes from now; and he asked us if he should do it. This was such a short time to decide in, that we went to pieces with nervous excitement, and before we could pull ourselves together and ask for particulars he said the time would be up in a few more seconds; so then we gasped out –

»Do it!«

»It is done,« he said; »she was going around a corner, I have turned her back; it has changed her career.«

»Then what will happen, Satan?«

»It is happening now. She is having words with Fischer, the weaver. In his anger Fischer will straightway do what he would not have done but for this accident. He was present when she stood over her child's body and uttered those blasphemies.«

»What will he do?«

»He is doing it now – betraying her to a priest. In three days she will go to the stake.«

We could not speak; we were frozen with horror, for if we had not meddled with her career she would have been spared this awful fate. Satan noticed these thoughts, and said –

»What you are thinking is strictly human-like; that is to say, foolish. The woman is advantaged. Die when she might, she would go to heaven. By this prompt death she gets twenty-nine years' more of heaven than she is entitled to, and escapes twenty-nine years of misery here.«

A moment before we were bitterly making up our minds that we would ask no more favors of Satan for friends of ours, for he did not seem to know any way to do a person a kindness but by killing him; but the whole aspect of the case was changed now, and we were glad of what we had done and full of happiness in the thought of it.

After a little I began to feel troubled about Fischer, and asked timidly –

»Does this episode change Fischer's life-scheme, Satan?«

»Change it? Why, certainly. And radically. If he had not met Frau Brandt a while ago he would die next year, thirty-four years of age. Now he will live to be ninety, and have a pretty prosperous and comfortable life of it, as human lives go.«

We felt a great joy and pride in what we had done for Fischer, and were expecting Satan to sympathise with this feeling; but he showed no sign, and this made us uneasy. We waited for him to speak, but he didn't; so, to assuage our solicitude we had to ask him if there was any defect in Fischer's good luck. Satan considered the question a moment, then said, with some hesitation –

»Well, the fact is, it is a delicate point. Under his several former possible life-careers he was going to heaven.«

We were aghast.

»Oh, Satan! and under this one –«

»There, don't be so distressed. You were sincerely trying to do him a kindness; let that comfort you.«

»Oh, dear, dear, that cannot comfort us. You ought to have told us what we were doing, then we wouldn't have acted so.«

But it made no impression on him. He had never felt a pain or a sorrow, and did not know what they were, in any really informing way. He had no knowledge of them except theoretically – that is to say, intellectually. And of course that is no good. One can never get any but a loose and ignorant notion of such things except by experience. We tried our best to make him comprehend the awful thing that had been done and how we were compromised by it, but he couldn't seem to get hold of it. He said he did not think it important where Fischer went to, in heaven he would not be missed, there were ›plenty there.‹ We tried to make him see that he was missing the point entirely; that Fischer, and not other people, was the proper one to decide about the importance of it; but it all went for nothing, he said he did not care for Fischer, there were plenty more Fischers.

The next minute Fischer went by, on the other side of the way, and it made us sick and faint to see him, remembering the doom that was upon him, and we the cause of it. And how unconscious he was that anything had happened to him! You could see by his elastic step and his alert manner that he was well satisfied with himself for doing that hard turn for poor Frau Brandt. He kept glancing back over his shoulder expectantly. And sure enough, pretty soon Frau Brandt followed after, in charge of the officers and wearing jingling chains. A mob was in her wake, jeering and shouting ›Blasphemer and heretic!‹ and some among them were neighbors and friends of her happier days. Some were trying to strike her, and the officers were not taking as much trouble as they might to keep them from it.

»Oh, stop them, Satan!« It was out before we remembered that he could not interrupt them for a moment without changing their whole after-lives. He puffed a little puff toward them with his lips and they began to reel and stagger and grab at the empty air; then they broke apart and fled in every direction, shrieking, as if in intolerable pain. He had crushed a rib of each of them with that little puff. We could not help asking if their life-chart was changed.

»Yes, entirely. Some have gained years, some have lost them. Some few will profit in various ways by the change, but only that few.«

We did not ask if we had brought poor Fischer's luck to any of them. We did not wish to know. We fully believed in Satan's desire to do us kindnesses, but we were losing confidence in his judgment. It was at this time that our growing anxiety to have him look over our life-charts and suggest improvements began to fade out and give place to other interests.

For a day or two the whole village was in a chattering turmoil over Frau Brandt's case and over the mysterious calamity that had overtaken the mob, and at her trial the place was crowded. She was easily convicted of her blasphemies, for she uttered those terrible words again and said she would not take them back. When warned that she was imperiling her life she said they could take it and welcome, she did not want it, she would rather live with the professional devils in perdition than with these amateurs in the village. They accused her of breaking all those ribs by witchcraft, and asked her if she was not a witch? She answered scornfully –

»No. If I had that power would any of you holy hypocrites be alive five minutes? No, I would strike you all dead. Pronounce your sentence and let me go; I am tired of your society.«

So they found her guilty, and she was excommunicated and cut off from the joys of heaven and doomed to the fires of hell; then she was clothed in a coarse robe and delivered to the secular arm, and conducted to the market place, the bell solemnly tolling the while. We saw her chained to the stake, and saw the first thin film of blue smoke rise on the still air. Then her hard face softened, and she looked upon the packed crowd in front of her and said with gentleness –

»We played together once, in long-gone days when we were innocent little creatures. For the sake of that, I forgive you.«

We went away then, and did not see the fires consume her, but we heard the shrieks, although we put our fingers in our ears. When they ceased we knew she was in heaven notwithstanding the excommunication; and we were glad of her death and not sorry that we had brought it about.

Chapter 8

One day, a little while after this, Satan appeared again. We were always watching out for him – Seppi and I – and longing for him; for life was never very stagnant when he was by. He came upon us at that place in the woods where we had first met him. Being boys, we wanted to be entertained, and we asked him to do a show for us.

»Very well,« he said, »would you like to see a history of the progress of the human race? – its development of that product which it calls Civilization?«

We said we should.

So, with a thought, he turned the place into the Garden of Eden, and we saw Abel praying by his altar; then Cain came walking toward him with his club, and did not seem to see us, and would have stepped on my foot if I had not drawn it in. He spoke to his brother in a language which we did not understand; then he grew violent and threatening, and we knew what was going to happen, and turned away our heads for the moment; but we heard the crash of the blows and heard the shrieks and the groans; then there was silence, and we saw Abel lying in his blood and gasping out his life, and Cain standing over him and looking down at him, vengeful and unrepentant.

Then the vision vanished, and was followed by a long series of unknown wars, murders and massacres. Next, we had the Flood, and the Ark tossing around in the stormy waters, with lofty mountains in the distance showing veiled and dim through the rain. Satan said –

»The progress of your race was not satisfactory. It is to have another chance, now.«

The scene changed, and we saw Noah lying drunk on Ararat.

Next, we had Sodom and Gomorrah, and ›the attempt to discover two or three respectable persons there,‹ as Satan described it. Next, Lot and his daughters in the cave.

Next came the Hebraic wars, and we saw the victors massacre the survivors and their cattle, and save the young girls alive and distribute them around.

Next, we had Jael; and saw her slip into the tent and drive the nail into the temples of her sleeping guest; and we were so close that when the blood gushed out it trickled in a little red stream to our feet and we could have stained our hands in it if we had wanted to.

Next we had Egyptian wars, Greek wars, Roman wars, hideous drenchings of the earth with blood; and we saw the treacheries of the Romans toward the Carthaginians, and the sickening spectacle of the massacre of those brave people. Also we saw Caesar invade Britain – »not that those barbarians had done him any harm, but because he wanted their land, and desired to confer the blessings of civilization upon their widows and orphans,« as Satan explained.

Next Christianity was born. Then, ages of Europe passed in review before us, and we saw Christianity and Civilization march hand in hand through those ages, »leaving famine and death and desolation in their wake, and other signs of the progress of the human race,« as Satan observed.

Then the Holy Inquisition was born; »another step in your progress,« Satan said. He showed us thousands of torn and mutilated heretics shrieking under the torture, and other thousands and thousands of heretics and witches burning at the stake, »always in the pleasant shade flung by the peaceful banner of the cross,« as Satan remarked. And in the midst of these fearful spectacles, as an incidental matter, we had a marvelous night-show, by the light of flitting and flying torches – the butchery of Christian by Christian in France on Bartholomew's Day.

And always we had wars, and more wars, and still other wars – all over Europe, all over the world. »Sometimes in the private interest of royal families,« Satan said, »sometimes to get more land, sometimes to crush a weak nation; but never a war started by the aggressor for any clean purpose – there is no such war in the history of your race.«

»Now,« said Satan, »you have seen your progress down to the present, and you must confess that it is wonderful – in its way. We must now exhibit the future. In a year or two we shall have Blenheim and Ramillies. Look!«

He showed us those awful slaughters.

»You perceive,« he said, »that you have made continual progress. Cain did his murder with a club; the Hebrews did their murders with javelins and swords; the Greeks and Romans added protective armor and the fine arts of military organisation and generalship; the Christian has added guns and gunpowder; two centuries from now he will have so greatly improved the deadly effectiveness of his weapons of slaughter that all men will confess that without the Christian Civilization war must have remained a poor and trifling thing to the end of time. In that day the lands and peoples of the whole pagan world will be at the mercy of the sceptred bandits of Europe, and they will take them. Furnishing in return, the blessings of civilization.

Nine years from now a Prussian prince will be born who will steal Silesia; plunge several nations into bloody and desolating wars; lead a life of treachery and general and particular villainy, and be admiringly called ›the Great.‹ Sixty-six years from now a Corsican will be born who will deluge Europe with blood and spread the Christian civilization far and wide. He also will be called ›the Great.‹ A trifle before his day, England will begin to swallow India. In his early manhood there will be a Revolution in France whose bloody exhibitions will be a more terrible thing to see than even France will have known since the Bartholomew Day. All through the next century there will be wars – wars everywhere in the earth. Wars for gain – each one a crime on the part of the provoker of it. An English queen will reign more than sixty years, and fight more than sixty wars during her reign – spreading civilization generously; also with profit. England, desiring a weak State's diamond mines, will take them – by robbery, but courteously. Desiring another weak State's gold mines, her statesmen will try to seize them by piracy; failing, they will manufacture a war and take them in that way; and with them the small State's independence.

The Christian missionary will exasperate the Chinese; they will kill him in a riot. They will have to pay for him, in territory, cash, and churches, sixty-two million times his value. This will exasperate the Chinese still more, and they will injudiciously rise in revolt against the insults and oppressions of the intruder. This will be Europe's chance to interfere and swallow China, and her band of royal Christian pirates will not waste it. Now then, I will show you this long array of crimson spectacles, so that you can note the progress of civilization from the time that Cain began it down to a period a couple of centuries hence.«

Then he began to laugh in the most unfeeling way, and make fun of the human race, although he knew that what he had been saying shamed us and wounded us. No one but an angel could have acted so; but suffering is nothing to them, they do not know what it is, except by hearsay.

More than once Seppi and I had tried in a humble and diffident way to convert him; and as he had remained silent we had taken his silence as a sort of encouragement; necessarily, then, this talk of his was a disappointment to us, for it showed that we had made no deep impression upon him. The thought made us sad, and we knew, then, how the missionary must feel when he has been cherishing a glad hope and has seen it blighted. We kept our grief to ourselves, knowing that this was not the time to continue our work.

Satan laughed his unkind laugh to a finish, then he said –

»It is a remarkable progress. In five or six thousand years five or six high civilizations have risen, flourished, commanded the wonder of the world, then faded out and disappeared; and not one of them except the latest, ever invented any sweeping and adequate way to kill people. They all did their best, to kill being the chiefest ambition of the human race and the earliest incident in its history, but only the Christian Civilization has scored a triumph to be proud of. Two centuries from now it will be recognised that all the competent killers are Christian; then the pagan world will go to school to the Christian: not to acquire his religion, but his guns. The Turk and the Chinaman will buy those, to kill missionaries and converts with.«

By this time his theatre was at work again: and before our eyes nation after nation drifted by, during two centuries, a mighty procession, an endless procession, raging, struggling, wallowing through seas of blood, smothered in battle-smoke through which the flags glinted and the red jets from the cannon darted; and always we heard the thunder of the guns and the cries of the dying.

»And what does it amount to?« said Satan, with his evil chuckle. »Nothing at all. You gain nothing; you always come out where you went in. For a million years the race has gone on monotonously propagating itself and monotonously re-performing this dull nonsense – to what end? No wisdom can guess! Who gets a profit out of it? Nobody but a parcel of usurping little monarchs and nobilities who despise you; would feel defiled if you touched them; would shut the door in your face if you proposed to call; whom you slave for, fight for, die for, and are not ashamed of it, but proud; whose existence is a perpetual insult to you and you are afraid to resent it; who are mendicants supported by your alms, yet assume toward you the airs of benefactor toward beggar; who address you in the language of master to slave and are answered in the language of slave to master; who are worshiped by you with your mouth, while in your hearts – if you have one – you despise yourselves for it. The first man was a hypocrite and a coward, qualities which have not yet failed in his line: it is the foundation upon which all civilizations have been built. Drink to their perpetuation! drink to their augmentation! drink to –«

Then he saw by our faces how much we were hurt, and he cut his sentence short and stopped chuckling, and his manner changed. He said gently –

»No, we will drink each other's health, and let civilization go. The wine which has flown to our hands out of space by my desire, is earthly, and good enough for that other toast, but throw away the glasses – we will drink this one in wine which has not visited this world before.«

We obeyed, and reached up and received the new cups as they descended. They were shapely and beautiful goblets, but they were not made of any material that we were acquainted with. They seemed to be in motion, they seemed to be alive; and certainly the colors in them were in motion. They were very brilliant and sparkling, and of every tint, and they were never still, but flowed to and fro in rich tides which met and broke and flashed out dainty explosions of enchanting color. I think it was most like opals washing about in waves and flashing out their splendid fires. But there is nothing to compare the wine with, just as there was never anything to compare Satan's music with. We drank it, and felt a strange and witching ecstasy go stealing through us, and Seppi's eyes filled and he said worshipingly –

»We shall be there some day, and then –«

He glanced furtively at Satan, and I think he hoped Satan would say »Yes, you will be there some day,« but Satan seemed to be thinking about something else, and said nothing. This made me feel ghastly, for I knew he had heard; nothing, spoken or unspoken, ever escaped him. Poor Seppi looked distressed, and did not finish his remark. The goblets rose, and clove their way into the sky, a triplet of radiant sundogs, and disappeared. Why didn't they stay? It seemed a bad sign, and depressed me. Should I ever see mine again? would Seppi ever see his?

Until this day I do not know. I never asked, and Seppi never asked. It is best not to inquire too far, in some matters, if you want to be comfortable. I had doubts about Seppi's ever seeing his goblet again, and I know he had doubts in my case, for some reason or other. These doubts restrained us and we did not pry into each other's fate further than concerned the present life.

You must never picture Satan as a solitary, but always with a lot of vagrant animals tagging around after him. Animals could not let him alone, they were so fascinated with him; and this was mutual, for he felt the same way toward them. He often said he would not give a penny for human company when he could get better. You see they were fond of each other because in a manner they were kin, through their mutual property in the absence of the Moral Sense. And kin in another particular, too – to him, as to them, there were no unpleasant smells. He said that unpleasant smells were an invention of Civilization – like modesty, and indecency. He said that to the pure all smells were sweet, to the decent all things were decent. He said that the natural man, the savage, had no prejudices about smells, and no shame for his God-made nakedness. Through intimacy with him we came to enjoy the society of many animals which had previously been repulsive to us, but we drew the line at the polecat. He did not; and so when he wanted to play with that creature we kept our distance. Indeed we were obliged to do this, it was not an affectation; for, while a polecat is undoubtedly a comely and graceful animal to look at, none but an angel can get any real joy out of its company. As for me, I would rather live in solitude. Seppi felt the same way.

Of course out there in the woods we had a perfect managerie on hand. The wild creatures trooped in from everywhere, and climbed all over Satan, and sat on his shoulder and his head, and rummaged his pockets, and made themselves at home – squirrels, rabbits, snakes, birds, butterflies, every creature you could name; and the rest would sit around in a crowd and look at him and admire him and worship him, and chatter and squawk and talk and laugh, and he would answer back in their own languages.

And they often beguiled him to do unlawful things. They would tell him of friends of theirs caught in traps by poachers in the prince's preserves, and would lead the way and show him, and he would release the creatures and destroy the traps. There was a reward out for the transgressor, and the keepers were on the watch, but he did not care. This time it was as usual. A rabbit came with a pitiful tale and he started, we following and protesting as far as the fence, and he changing himself into a rough and ragged poacher as he went. He got a broken-legged rabbit out of a trap, healed it with a touch and let it go – and there were the keepers in ambush, and swarmed out and surrounded him, catching him in the act. Four of them. The chief keeper, Conrad Bart, spoke his mind freely, calling Satan hard names, and said –

»We have you at last, lousy vagabond, and now you shall pay with usury for the trouble and worry you have given us, and the nights of watching, and the scouting and the fatigue. And also for the deridings and revilings his Highness has discharged upon us for being less cunning than you and letting you outwit us so long. Oh, yes, you shall pay!«

Satan said –

»It is a mistake; you think me a poacher, but I am not. I give you my honor I am innocent.«

All the keepers laughed at that, and said »He gives us his honor – he!« and Bart said he ought not to tell lies, he had no art in it.

»I am not lying,« said Satan. »I am a stranger; you do not know me; you have not seen me before; then how can you know whether it is I whom you have been seeking, or another?«

Bart said, with an airy toss of his head –

»It is plain that whether I know you or not, you do not know me; or you would know that I do not waste my time and my master's in bartering arguments with your kind of vermin. Now then, drop it. And answer: what is your name, and where are you from?«

»I do not choose to tell my name, nor where I am from. And you are mistaken in thinking I do not know you. I know the four of you; and I know things about each of you which you would not like the magistrates to find out.«

It made them very angry, and three of them were for lashing him to a tree and flogging the insolence out of him; but Bart said –

»Wait – let him speak, we shall lose nothing. For each separate lie that he tells he shall have a separate flogging. Begin. What do you know about Caspar, there?«

»That at midnight, ten nights ago, in a lonely place he hid something which the owner would much like to recover.«

»It is a lie!« shouted Caspar, and the others slapped their thighs in malicious joy to see Caspar snapped up in that startling and ungracious fashion.

»Then let us go and fetch it,« said Satan.

»Agreed!« said all but Caspar, and were for starting; but Caspar begged, and took back the ›lie,‹ and said he had spoken hastily.

»Then confess,« said Satan.

»I do,« said Caspar, but with an ill grace, and with a nod of his head as much as to say »you will pay for this,« whereat the others made merry again.

»It was a good guess, tramp,« said Bart, »and saves you one thrashing. But you are not out of the woods yet. Try again. What do you know about Johan?«

»That he also possesses something which does not belong to him. It is a piece of gold, and has a secret mark upon it. I know the owner and the mark. Also, I know where the gold-piece is.«

Johan burst into a wordy fury and called Satan the most shameful names, and threw off his jacket and challenged him to fight, but Satan was not moved. Then Johan's temper got so much the better of him that he made a mistake; for he swore he hadn't a gold-piece and dared Satan to prove the contrary.

»He has sewed it up in the lining of his jacket, there,« said Satan.

Johan jumped for the jacket, but the others were too quick for him; and in the lining they found the coin.

Things were beginning to look serious. The men lost their levity, and looked nonplussed and ill at ease. There was a moment's silence, then Bart said, with the manner of one who has been relaxing himself with a childish game, but is tired of it and would return to matters of dignity and importance –

»Well, enough of this nonsense. Bind the loafer and fetch him along.«

»Ah,« said Conrad, with a sneer, »it is that way that the cat jumps, is it?«

»What do you mean?« said Bart.

»I mean that you've got us exposed, and now you would sneak out yourself.«

»Take back the words!«

»I won't take them back. You know you don't dare to let this devil's imp tell what he knows about you. Do you hear? – you don't dare.«

»It's a lie!« Then, his temper being up and hot, he made a mistake. »If he knows anything about me that I am hiding, let him out with it. Come – speak up, poacher and spy; and mind, if you utter so much as half a lie about me, I will not leave a whole bone in your body.«

»I shall say only the truth,« said Satan. »First, then, from to-day you will not be a keeper, but will be kept. You will be a public show and a curiosity, and will earn your family's living in that way.«

This made the others laugh, but not Bart.

»Damn your prophecies!« he cried. »Confine yourself to what you know about me.«

»Very well. Eighteen years ago a man was murdered near this village, for money. I know where the body lies; and with the body are the proofs that you did the murder, and not Jacob Hein whom you sent to the gallows for it.«

Before you could think, Bart's gun was at Satan's breast and his finger on the trigger. But he never pulled it; Satan turned him to stone – clothes, gun and all.

And while those others were staring at this strange statue he turned himself into Father Adolf. They took only one glance at him, then fled away, crossing themselves, and soon they had spread the news, and set the persecuted village wild once more. The way Satan was acting, he was sure to greatly injure Father Adolf's character, which was bad enough already, but I did not say anything. It would have been of no use; Satan would have said, »He is only a human being – it is of no consequence.«

Seppi was sorry for Bart's family, but Satan said he had done them a favor; that Bart was a fortune to them, now; they could exhibit him and get rich.

We met the crowds coming up, but he had already told us to keep away from him, and we were obeying. He said he should not be favorably received, and he was right. They fell apart and gave him a wide passage and were cruelly afraid of him, and showed his ecclesiastical authority a servile deference by uncovering to him and making humble obeisance; but the minute his back was to them they stoned him. They fairly rained missiles upon him, which struck and bounded off in sprays, but he didn't mind it, but strode contentedly along, acting like a person who was refreshing himself with a shower-bath, and much obliged.

Then we turned back. It was pitiful to see the family, their grief was so bitter. They flung their arms around the statue, and kissed it and cried over it, and could not be comforted. All the crowd admired the statue, and were full of wonder at its minute fidelities to fact, even the least little frayed and torn places in the clothes being exactly preserved, while as a portrait the work was perfection, and the murderous expression in countenance and attitude splendidly lifelike and animated and true; so true and so real that when women found themselves suddenly in front of the malignant face and the marble gun they gave a little screech and jumped aside. The birds in the game-bag were perfectly rendered, and so was a fly that was on the left cheek; it was like the frozen flies you find on the panes, winter mornings, white-shrouded in glinting frost. Siebold the drunken artist was there, and he said there was not another work of art in Europe that could match this one for modeling and tone.

The coroner's jury took their seats and reverently uncovered their heads, and the keepers were sworn and gave testimony. They said they caught the priest red-handed, and that by the power of his devil he had for the moment taken upon himself the semblance of a poacher, which deceived them and they did not suspect it was the priest. A quarrel followed, and the poacher tried to kill deceased, whereupon deceased, in self-defence, pulled his gun upon the poacher, but before he could fire, deceased, by black magic and devil's arts, turned deceased into the present rock, as here exhibited; then assumed his own proper shape and said with many ribald oaths that if any durst lay a hand upon him, by God he would perpetuate his substance likewise.

Then the jury rendered a verdict that deceased had come to his death by the visitation of God. Also the fly.

The coroner was not willing to accept the verdict, because it included the fly.

The jury insisted that they could not exclude the fly without irreverence, since God in His inscrutable wisdom had seen fit to honor the humble animal with an equal share in His visitation.

The coroner said it was manifest to any thoughtful mind that the overtaking of the fly by the visitation was an accident, and not intentional.

The foreman retorted, »if there has been an accident, then a verdict cannot be reached at all, since we have no way of determining which of the parties fell by accident and which by intention.«

The coroner advanced the theory that the foreman was an ass; which made a great stir, Siebold the drunken artist and some others approving, and were called to order, and silence enjoined upon them. The coroner continued, »To the reflecting mind there is no difficulty here. The intention would necessarily be directed against the party in chief, which would be deceased, by right of his superior dignity as man, office-bearer and Christian, and not against the party of the second part, who, being without estate, position or legal recognition, cannot in reason claim precedence over the party of the first part in a so grave matter as the present, wherein the divine grace has manifestly purposed a rebuke to but one party and not both.«

The foreman responded with some heat: »How do you know there was an accident? Is it in the character of the Deity to deal in accidents? (SIEBOLD: – Good!) Is He so poor a marksman as to fire at one and bring down two? (SIEBOLD: – Good again!) How do you know what the fly had been doing? Are you in the secret of the privacies of God? Is it your high privilege to sit in judgment upon His acts and determine for Him which of them are intentional and which of them are due to heedlessness and inattention – at your salary? It is self-conceit gone mad, it is blasphemous impertinence.«

SEVERAL EXCITED JURYMEN: Stand by the verdict! stand by it!

THE FOREMAN: Trust me to do my whole duty. Sir, this jury cannot concede, without the most awful irreverence, that an all-compassionate Providence would lift its hand against even so humble a creature as a fly without just and righteous cause. We cannot and will not concede that this fly fell by accident. This fly was guilty of an offence which is hidden from us and which we are not privileged to pry into. What it did is a secret between itself and its Creator (and perhaps the coroner!) but it was guilty, and that guilt is witnessed and forever established by its fate. Let it be a lesson to us all.

THE CORONER: Then you stand to your verdict.

THE FOREMAN impressively: God helping us, we do; and to the issue we do solemnly commit our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor. (VOICES: Amen!) »Not even a sparrow falls,« and so forth and so forth; and neither does a fly. This Christian – such as he was – this alleged Christian fell by the dispensation of God; this fly likewise. Such is the verdict, and by it we stand or fall. Wir können nicht anders.

All the assemblage burst into a bravo of applause.

THE CORONER with dignity: Remove the fly from the image, and exclude it from the verdict. On no other terms will I accept a finding of the court.

THE FOREMAN sternly: It shall not be done.

THE CORONER: The inquest is closed. There is no verdict. The absence of a verdict determining the cause of the man's death debars me from issuing the necessary burial-permit; deceased must therefore remain unburied – that is, in consecrated ground. He may be a suicide.

The family began to wail and plead, but the coroner was firm, saying, with a wave of his hand toward the image –

»The law must be respected. Remove the petrifaction.«

It was loaded into a six-ox van by twenty-two men and followed to the Bart homestead by the weeping family and by the public, who walked uncovered, and there it was housed from view and crape hung upon the door. There was a wake that night, and next day the customary funeral-feast; and in every way the due and usual decencies were observed, even to the sending out of invitations (with the date blank), to the funeral. After some months, when the season of first-mourning had expired, the public exhibition began, and was inordinately successful, children and servants half price, and crowds coming from all over the Empire, and even from foreign countries, and many Italian image-dealers paying a commission for the privilege of making and selling small casts of it. The family quickly grew rich, and in the next generation obtained nobility in Germany at the usual rates. After many, many years it was sold, and passed from hand to hand and country to country, and now for a long time it has been in the Pitti palace in Florence, earning its living as a Roman antique.

Chapter 9

I wanted to know my whole history in advance, but I never asked Satan for it. I was afraid, for it might be an unhappy history. I could change it if I had the plan of it, but any change might happen to be for the worse. I knew this because Satan had shown me other people's lives and I saw that in nearly all cases there would be little or no advantage in altering them. He made maps of these lives, as cross-lined and intricate as spider-webs, and pointed out to me that while each change in a billion would introduce a new career, I could not trace any one of them very far without perceiving that as a rule it only skipped one kind of unhappiness to land in one of a different breed, and not any easier to bear. And there was another deterrent: I believed that to know my whole life beforehand would take the interest out of it. It would be destitute of surprises. No glad event could stir me, I should have discounted all its possible effects long before it arrived. I should fix my attention on coming griefs and calamities mainly, and be mourning and suffering on their account all the dragging years till their appointed dates came round and the disasters fell.

So I conquered my curiosity and left the secret of my future sealed, and I am sure it was best so. I did ask for Seppi's future, and got it instantly, beautifully printed in many large volumes, which I hid away and still possess. But I read only a page or two in the beginning. They spoiled a couple of days for me, for during that time Seppi was merely a weariness to me, because every smart remark he made had a stale sound – I had read it in the book; and there was no surprise in anything he did – I had read it in the book. After that, he was interesting again; for I allowed him to do his day and say his say, and then at night reviewed the performance in the book to see that he had been honest and had not skipped anything.

I found afterward that he had my life, and was following the same system. When we grew to manhood we were often separated – sometimes years at a stretch – but the books kept us united. Every morning each of us read what was going to happen to the other that day. During separations we corresponded constantly, yet never wrote a letter. The letters which we were about to write, and which were in our minds, were always in the books – put there by Satan long before. Whenever a great joy or a great sorrow came into my life I took my book and read Seppi's letter of sympathy about it. And when a joy or a sorrow came into Seppi's life I knew that he was finding a letter from me in his book concerning it. I have lost a grandchild to-day. I have his good letter of pity and condolence in my book.

But I am wandering too far from my boyhood. We often got Satan to furnish us the happenings of the town a day in advance, and this was a very good scheme, and interesting. When there was to be an event, we turned out and made bets with the other boys and bankrupted them. The time that the church was to be struck by lightning, we stripped them clean. It was a particularly good opportunity, for nothing could have made them believe that God would strike his own house; so they were an easy prey. We betted that it would happen on the morrow; they took us up and gave us the odds of two to one; we betted that it would happen in the afternoon; we got odds of four to one on that; we betted that it would happen at two minutes to three; they willingly granted us the odds of ten to one on that. They went home rejoicing, and we were not sad ourselves.

Next day it was beautiful weather; at noon it was the same. The boys began to make fun of us, and said perhaps we wanted to make some more bets, and we said no, and looked depressed, as well as we could. This was to draw them on. They offered us multiplied odds, but we declined. It made them bolder, and they followed us up, increasing the odds, and we looking ashamed and regretful, and not taking them up. This also was to draw them on. It had that effect. They still followed us around and raised the odds, and got everybody to laughing at us, and all had a good time. At a quarter past 2 we were looking cowed – which was intentional, and made them lose the rest of their judgment. They raised the odds to the bursting point, and then all of a sudden we took them up!

At first they could not believe it, and were funnier over it than ever, for still the skies were bright. But only for a quarter of an hour. Then the clouds came and a storm began to gather. It grew blacker and blacker, and the lightnings began to glimmer and the thunder to mutter. The boys stopped laughing and began to look sober; and it was time. Then we began to jeer and offer odds, but there were no takers. They grew very anxious and went drifting toward the church, so that they could see the clock. At ten minutes to 3 the thunder was booming and the lightning glaring fiercely out on the gloom every little while. We all stood in the rain, unconscious of it, saying not a word, holding our breath, gaping at the creeping minute-hand. It crept and crept, dragged and dragged – it seemed weeks to those boys, no doubt. Then at 2 minutes to 3 there was a crash and a blinding flash, and the gilt Apostle over the great door was struck down.

There was not a marble, nor a top, nor a kite, nor any useful thing left in that town that did not belong to Seppi and me. And silbergroschen galore! It was a long time before those boys' fortunes recovered from that cataclysm. And when they did recover, at last, we could not get them to bet with us. They betted with each other, but were afraid to take risks with us, thinking we might be in league with the evil spirit which was occupying Father Adolf. But little by little we drew them on once more. This was by art. By a private arrangement Seppi made bets with me, in the boys' presence, and won them every time, he jeering and I losing my temper. So then they began to bet with me and I let them win, but they would not risk a bet with Seppi. At last they were ripe, and we set our trap for them. On a Monday Simon Hirsch was going to break his leg at seven minutes after 12, noon, and as soon as Satan told us the day before, Seppi went to betting with me that it would not happen, and soon they got excited and went to betting with me themselves. By working the game judiciously I presently had them in for all they were worth; and next day, sure enough, at 7 minutes after 12 we skinned them again, and divided the take. We were not sorry, for it was wrong for them to bet on Sunday. It seemed to me that it was a plain judgment on them. And not an accident, but intentional. Seppi said it was as manifest as the fly's case. Seppi knew about judgments, for his uncle was in the ministry.

We tried to sell advance-news to the man who wrote the daily news-letter in the cathedral town ten miles up the river, but he said we were fools: »how could we know what was going to happen next day.« But we had already told him; so next day he saw that we had been right; then he was ready to buy, and we furnished him the news early enough so that he could get his news-letter out a whole day before the happenings happened. His circulation was much increased, and there was an excitement. We offered to sell him news a year in advance – a century if he liked; but his faith was not strong enough for that; he said a couple of days ahead was good enough for him. The excitement increased; and presently we were able to tell him a specially good item – that inside of twenty-four hours he would be in jail as a wizard. It came near to scaring him to death, and in the jail he sent for us to come and tell him some more of his future, and how to beat it if possible. Satan said he was due to be burnt in a week, but that if he would not answer the jailor's knock at once, that night, but count five, first, it would change his career and he would live fifteen years and then be hanged; but he must be exact, for if he counted only four he would get his throat cut before the end of the year, and if he counted six he would break his neck in three months and be certainly damned besides – he could have his choice. So we went and reported, and he was very grateful, and paid us nobly, and elected to be hanged.

It was wonderful, the mastery Satan had over time and distance. For him they did not exist. He called them human inventions, and said they were mere artificialities. We often went to the most distant parts of the globe with him, and stayed weeks and months, and yet were gone only a fraction of a second, as a rule. You could prove it by the clock. One day when our people were in such awful distress because the witch-commission were afraid to proceed against Father Adolf and Father Peter's household, or against any, indeed, but the poor and the friendless, they lost patience and took to witch-hunting on their own score, and began to chase a born lady who was known to have the habit of curing people by devilish arts, such as bathing them, washing them and nourishing them, instead of bleeding them and purging them through the ministrations of a barber-surgeon in the proper way. She came flying down, with the mob after her howling and cursing, and tried to take refuge in houses, but the doors were shut in her face. They chased her more than half an hour, we following, to see it, and at last she was exhausted, and fell, and they caught her. They dragged her to a tree and threw a rope over a limb and began to make a noose in it, some holding her, meantime, and she crying and begging, and her young daughter looking on and weeping, but afraid to say or do anything.

In a way it was dreadful; still it was brave in the people, seeing they were not backed up by authority, but were willing to do their Christian duty without it, a thing which was to our Church's credit, and I said so; and said only Catholics could have this courage. But Satan said –

»No, Protestants have it also. Come with me to Scotland and I will show you that which will rebuke your pride.«

So we went. The Protestants were chasing a middle-aged gentlewoman who was charged by a servant with secretly practising the papist religion. She was large and strong, and horribly frightened, and she ran like a deer, her gray hair flying out loose behind; and whenever the mob came near to overtaking her she dodged quickly off on another course and got ahead again, and it seemed as if they would never catch her. But after two hours the clergyman arrived, and he said »form a half-circle and close in on her and drive her to the sea-beach.« That worked better, and I think she lost hope, then. Still, she struggled on, in her despair, and it was another half hour before they caught her, so many ingenious ways did she invent to elude them. But at last she stumbled and fell, and before she could rise they were upon her, and a great shout of triumph went up. She struggled, but some held her down while others fetched a barn door and laid it upon her and stood on it. Even dying she struggled with such power that she made the door rock and surge under their feet for a little while; then all was still, and she was dead. And sure enough, her daughter stood apart and saw it all, weeping, but afraid to speak or try to help her mother. Satan said –

»There – you see? You have nothing to be proud of more than these Protestants. Come back to Eseldorf.«

We had been gone more than three hours, and yet were back just as they finished making the noose. We had seen them begin it, it took them only a minute to finish it; and in that little interval we had spent all that time far away across the sea in Scotland. It was wonderful. They hanged the lady, and I threw a stone at her, although in my heart I was sorry for her; but all were throwing stones and each was watching his neighbor, and if I had not done as the others did it would have been noticed and spoken of. Satan burst out laughing.

All that were near by turned upon him astonished and not pleased. It was an ill time to laugh, for his free and scoffing ways and his supernatural music had brought him under suspicion all over the town and turned many privately against him. The big blacksmith called attention to him, now, raising his voice so that all should hear, and said –

»What are you laughing at? Answer! Moreover, please explain to the company why you threw no stone.«

»Are you sure I did not throw a stone?«

»Yes. You needn't try to get out of it; I had my eye on you.«

»And I – I noticed you!« shouted two others.

»Three witnesses,« said Satan. »Müller, the blacksmith; Klein, the butcher's man; Pfeiffer, the weaver's journeyman. Three very ordinary liars. Are there any more?«

»Never mind whether there are others or not, and never mind about what you consider us – three's enough to settle your matter for you. You'll prove that you threw a stone, or it shall go hard with you.«

»That's so!« shouted the crowd, and surged up as closely as they could to the centre of interest.

»And first you will answer that other question,« cried the blacksmith, pleased with himself for being mouthpiece to the public and hero of the occasion. »What were you laughing at?«

Satan smiled, and answered pleasantly –

»To see three cowards stoning a dying lady when they were so near to death themselves.«

You could see the superstitious crowd shrink and catch their breath under the sudden shock. The blacksmith, with a show of bravado, said –

»Pooh! what do you know about it?«

»I? Everything. By profession I am a fortune-teller, and I read the hands of you three – and some others – when you lifted them to stone the woman. One of you will die to-morrow week; another of you will die to-night; the third has but five minutes to live – and yonder is the clock!«

It made a sensation. The faces of the crowd blenched, and turned mechanically toward the clock. The butcher and the weaver seemed smitten with an illness, but the blacksmith braced up and said, with spirit –

»It is not long to wait for prediction Number One. If it fails, young master, you will not live a whole minute after, I promise you that.«

No one said anything; all watched the clock in a deep stillness which was impressive. When four and a half minutes were gone, the blacksmith gave a sudden gasp and clapped his hand upon his heart, saying, »Give me breath! give me room!« and began to sink down. The crowd surged back, no one offering to support him, and he fell lumbering to the ground and was dead. The people stared at him, then at Satan, then at each other, and their lips moved but no words came. Then Satan said –

»Three saw that I threw no stone. Perhaps there are others; let them speak.«

It struck a kind of panic into them, and although no one answered him, many began to violently accuse each other, saying, »You said he didn't throw,« and getting for reply, »It is a lie, and I will make you eat it!« And so in a moment they were in a raging and noisy turmoil, and beating and banging each other; and in the midst was the only indifferent one – the dead lady hanging from her rope, her troubles forgotten, her spirit at peace.

So we walked away, and I was not at ease, but was saying to myself, »He told them he was laughing at them, but it was a lie, he was laughing at me.«

That made him laugh again, and he said –

»Yes, I was laughing at you, because in fear of what others might report about you, you stoned the woman when your heart revolted at the act – but I was laughing at the others, too.«

»Why?«

»Because their case was yours.«

»How is that?«

»Well, there were sixty-eight people there, and sixty-two of them had no more desire to throw a stone than you had.«

»Satan!«

»Oh, it's true. I know your race. It is made up of sheep. It is governed by minorities, seldom or never by majorities. It suppresses its feelings and its beliefs and follows the handful that makes the most noise. Sometimes the noisy handful is right, sometimes wrong; but no matter, the crowd follows it. The vast majority of the race, whether savage or civilized, are secretly kind-hearted, and shrink from inflicting pain; but in the presence of the aggressive and pitiless minority they don't dare to assert themselves. Think of it! one kind-hearted creature spies upon another, and sees to it that he loyally helps in iniquities which revolt both of them. Speaking as an expert, I know that ninety-nine out of a hundred of your race were strongly against the killing of witches when that foolishness was first agitated by a handful of pious lunatics in the long ago. And I know that even to-day, after ages of transmitted prejudice and silly teaching, only one person in twenty puts any real heart into the harrying of a witch. And yet apparently everybody hates witches and wants them killed. Some day a handful will rise up on the other side and make the most noise – perhaps even a single daring man with a big voice and a determined front will do it – and in a week all the sheep will wheel and follow him, and witch-hunting will come to a sudden end. In fact this happened within these ten years, in a little country called New England.

Monarchies, aristocracies and religions are all based upon that large defect in your race – the individual's distrust of his neighbor, and his desire, for safety's or comfort's sake, to stand well in his neighbor's eyes. These institutions will always remain, always flourish, and always oppress you, affront you and degrade you, because you will always be and remain slaves of minorities. There was never a country where the majority of the people were in their secret hearts loyal to either of these institutions.«

I did not like to hear our race called sheep, and said I did not think they were.

»Still, it is true, lamb,« said Satan. »Look at you in war – what mutton you are, and how ridiculous.«

»In war? How?«

»There has never been a just one, never an honorable one – on the part of the instigator of the war. I can see a million years ahead, and this rule will never change in so many as half a dozen instances. The loud little handful – as usual – will shout for the war. The pulpit will – warily and cautiously – object – at first; the great big dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, ›It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is no necessity for it.‹ Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will out-shout them, and presently the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity. Before long you will see this curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform and free speech strangled, by hordes of furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers, – as earlier, – but do not dare to say so! And now the whole nation – pulpit and all – will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open. Next, the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.«

»But Satan, as civilization advances –«

Of course he broke in with a laugh. He never could hear that word without jeering at it and making fun of it. He said he had seen thirteen of them rise in the world and decay and perish to savagery – three of them the superiors in every way to any now known to the histories or to be known to the histories in the next ten thousand years – and they were all poor things: shams and hypocrisies and tyrannies, every one.

»Two centuries from now,« he said, »the Christian civilization will reach its highest mark. Yet its kings will still be, then, what they are now, a close corporation of land-thieves. Is that an advance? England will be prodigious and strong; she will bear the most honorable name that ever a nation bore, and will lose it in a single little shameful war and carry the stench of it and the blot of it to the end of her days. To please a dozen rich adventurers her statesmen will pick a quarrel with a couple of wee little Christian farmer-communities, and send against that half dozen villages the mightiest army that ever invaded any country, and will crush those little nations and rob them of their independence and their land. She will make a noisy pretence of being proud of these things, but deep down in her heart she will be ashamed of them and will grieve for her soiled flag – once the symbol of liberty and honor and justice, now the pirate's emblem.«

»Satan,« I said, »this would not happen it she could have the true religion.«

»Ah, yes – the kind of treasure which you have here in Austria. My uncle is thinking of introducing it into his dominions.«

It was shocking to hear him talk so.

»Satan,« I said, »it would defile it!«

He only pulled down the corner of his eye with his finger.

Chapter 10

Days and days went by, now, and no Satan. It was dull without him. But Father Adolf was around braving public opinion in his impudent way and getting a stone in the middle of his back now and then when some witch-hater got a safe chance to throw it and dodge out of sight. Meantime two influences had been working well for Marget. Satan, who was quite indifferent to her, had stopped going to her house, and this had hurt her pride and she had set herself the task of banishing him from her heart; the reports of Wilhelm Meidling's dissipation brought to her from time to time by old Ursula had touched her with remorse, she being the cause of it; and so now, these two matters working upon her together, she was getting a good profit out of the combination: her interest in Satan was steadily cooling, her interest in Wilhelm as steadily warming. All that was needed to complete her conversion was that Wilhelm should brace up and do something that should cause favorable talk and incline the public toward him again.

The opportunity came, now. Marget sent and asked him to defend her uncle in the approaching trial, and he was greatly pleased, and stopped drinking and began his preparations with diligence. With more diligence than hope, in fact, for it was not a promising case. He had many interviews in his office with Seppi and me, and thrashed out our testimony pretty thoroughly, thinking to find some valuable grains among the chaff, but the harvest was poor, of course.

If Satan would only come! That was my constant thought. He could invent some way to win the case; for he had said it would be won, so he necessarily knew how it could be done. But the days dragged on, and still he did not come. Of course I did not doubt that it would win, and that Father Peter would be happy for the rest of his life, since Satan had said so; yet I knew I should be much more comfortable if he would come and tell us how to manage it. It was getting high time for Father Peter to have a saving change toward happiness, for by general report he was worn out with his imprisonment and the ignominy that was burdening him, and was like to die of his miseries unless he got relief soon.

At last the trial came on, and the people gathered from all around to witness it; among them many strangers from considerable distances. Yes, everybody was there, except the accused. He was too feeble in body for the strain. But Marget was present, and keeping up her hope and her spirit the best she could.

The money was present, too. It was emptied on the table, and was handled and caressed and examined by such as were privileged.

Father Adolf was put in the witness box.

QUESTION: You claim that this money is yours?

ANSWER: I do.

Q.: How did you come by it?

A.: I found the bag in the road when I was returning from a journey.

Q.: When?

A.: More than two years ago.

Q.: What did you do with it?

A.: I brought it home and hid it in a secret place in my study, intending to find the owner if I could.

Q.: You endeavored to find him?

A.: I made diligent inquiry during several months, but nothing came of it.

Q.: And then?

A.: I thought it not worth while to look further, and was minded to use the money in finishing the wing of the foundling asylum connected with the priory and nunnery. So I took it out of its hiding-place and counted it to see if any of it was missing. And then –

Q.: Why do you stop? Proceed.

A.: I am sorry to have to say this, but just as I had finished and was restoring the bag to its place, I looked up and there stood Father Peter behind me.

Several murmured, »That looks bad,« but others answered, »Ah, but he is such a liar!«

Q.: That made you uneasy?

A.: No, I thought nothing of it at the time, for Father Peter often came in unannounced to ask for a little help in his need.

Marget blushed crimson at hearing her uncle falsely and impudently charged with begging, and was going to speak, but remembered herself in time and held her peace.

Q.: Proceed.

A.: In the end I was afraid to contribute the money to the foundling asylum, but elected to wait yet another year and continue my inquiries. When I heard of Father Peter's find I was glad, and no suspicions entered my mind; when I came home a day or two later and discovered that my own money was gone I still did not suspect, until three circumstances connected with Father Peter's good fortune struck me as being singular coincidences.

Q.: Pray name them.

A.: Father Peter had found his money in a path – I had found mine in a road. Father Peter's find consisted exclusively of gold ducats – mine also. Father Peter found eleven hundred and seven ducats – I exactly the same.

This closed his evidence; and certainly it made a strong impression on the house; one could see that.

Wilhelm Meidling asked him some questions, then called us boys, and we told our tale. It made the people laugh, and we were ashamed. We were feeling pretty badly anyhow, because Wilhelm was hopeless, and showed it. He was doing as well as he could, poor young fellow, but nothing was in his favor, and such sympathy as there was was now plainly not with his client. It might be difficult for court and people to believe Father Adolf's story, considering his character, but it was almost impossible to believe Father Peter's. We were already feeling badly enough, but when Father Adolf's lawyer said he believed he would not ask us any questions, for our story was a little delicate and it would be cruel for him to put any strain upon it, everybody tittered, and it was almost more than we could bear. Then he made a sarcastic little speech, and got so much fun out of our tale, and made it seem so ridiculous and childish and every way impossible and foolish that it made everybody laugh till the tears came; and at last Marget could not keep up her courage any longer, but broke down and cried, and I was so sorry for her.

Now I noticed something that braced me up. It was Satan, standing alongside of Wilhelm! And there was such a contrast: Satan looked so confident, had such a spirit in his eyes and face, and Wilhelm looked so depressed and despondent. We two were comfortable now, and judged that he would testify, and would persuade the bench and the people that black was white and white black, or any other color he wanted it. We glanced around to see what the strangers in the house thought of him, for he was beautiful, you know; stunning, in fact; but no one was noticing him; so we knew by that that he was invisible.

That lawyer was saying his last words; and while he was saying them Satan began to melt into Wilhelm. He melted into him and disappeared; and then there was a change, when his spirit began to look out of Wilhelm's eyes.

That lawyer finished quite seriously, and with dignity. He pointed to the money, and said –

»The love of it is the root of all evil. There it lies, the ancient tempter, newly red with the shame of its latest victory – the dishonor of a priest of God and of his two poor juvenile helpers in crime. If it could but speak, let us hope that it would be constrained to confess that of all its conquests this was the basest and the most pathetic.«

He sat down. Wilhelm rose, and said –

»From the testimony of the reverend Father Adolf I gather that he found this money in a road more than two years ago. Correct me, sir, if I misunderstood you.«

Father Adolf said his understanding of it was correct.

»And that the money so found was never out of his hands thenceforth up to a certain definite date – the last day of last year. Correct me, sir, if I am wrong.«

Father Adolf nodded his head. Wilhelm turned to the bench and said –

»If I prove that this money here was not that money, then it is not his?«

»Certainly not; but this is irregular. If you had such a witness it was your duty to give proper notice of it and have him here to –« He broke off and began to consult with the other judges. Meantime that other lawyer got up excited and began to protest against allowing new witnesses to be brought into the case at this late stage.

The judges decided that his contention was just and must be allowed.

»But this is not a new witness,« said Wilhelm. »It has already been partly examined. I speak of the coin.«

»The coin? What can the coin say?«

»It can say it is not the coin that Father Adolf once possessed. It can say it was not in existence last December. By its date it can say this.«

And it was so! There was the greatest excitement in the court while that lawyer, and Father Adolf and the judges were reaching for coins and examining them and exclaiming. And everybody was full of admiration of Wilhelm's brightness in happening to think of that neat idea. At last order was called and the court said –

»All of the coins but four are of the date of the present year. The court tenders its sincere sympathy to the accused, and its deep regret that he, an innocent man, should through an unfortunate mistake have suffered the undeserved humiliation of imprisonment and trial. The case is dismissed.«

So the money could speak, after all, though that lawyer thought it couldn't. The court rose, and almost everybody came forward to shake hands with Marget and congratulate her and then to shake with Wilhelm and praise him; and Satan had stepped out of Wilhelm and was standing around looking on full of interest, and people walking through him every which way, not knowing he was there. And Wilhelm could not explain why he only thought of the date on the coins at the last moment, instead of earlier; he said it just occurred to him all of a sudden, like an inspiration, and he brought it right out without any hesitation, for although he hadn't examined the coins he seemed somehow to know it was true. That was honest of him, and like him; another would have pretended he had thought of it earlier, and was keeping it back for a surprise.

He had dulled down a little, now; not much, but still you could notice that he hadn't that luminous look in his eyes that he had while Satan was in him. He nearly got it back, though, for a moment, when Marget came and praised him and thanked him, and couldn't keep him from seeing how proud she was of him. Father Adolf went off dissatisfied and cursing, and Solomon Isaacs gathered up the money and carried it away. It was Father Peter's for good and all, now.

Satan was gone. I judged that he had spirited himself to the jail to tell the prisoner the news; and in this I was right. Marget and the rest of us hurried thither at our best speed, in a great state of rejoicing.

Well, what Satan had done was this. He had appeared before that poor prisoner exclaiming –

»The trial is over, and you stand forever disgraced as a thief – by verdict of the court!«

The shock unseated the old man's reason. When we arrived, ten minutes later, he was parading pompously up and down and delivering commands to this and that and the other constable or jailor, and calling them Grand Chamberlain, and Prince This and Prince That, and Admiral of the Fleet, and Field Marshal in Command, and all such fustian, and was as happy as a bird. He thought he was Emperor!

Marget flung herself on his breast and cried, and indeed everybody was moved, almost to heart-break. He recognised Marget, but could not understand why she should cry. He patted her on the shoulder and said –

»Don't do it, dear; remember, there are witnesses, and it is not becoming in the Crown Princess. Tell me your trouble – it shall be mended; there is nothing the Emperor cannot do.« Then he looked around and saw old Ursula with her apron to her eyes. He was puzzled at that, and said, »And what is the matter with you?«

Through her sobs she got out words explaining that she was distressed to see him – »so.« He reflected over that a moment, then muttered, as if to himself, »A singular old thing, the Dowager Duchess – means well, but is always snuffling, and never able to tell what it is about. It is because she doesn't know.« His eye fell on Wilhelm. »Prince of India,« he said, »I divine that it is you that the Crown Princess is concerned about. Her tears shall be dried; I will no longer stand between you; she shall share your throne; and between you, you shall inherit mine. There, little lady, have I done well? you can smile, now – isn't it so?«

He petted Marget, and kissed her, and was so contented with himself and with everybody, that he could not do enough for us all, but began to give away kingdoms and such things right and left, and the least that any of us got was a principality. And so at last being persuaded to go home, he marched in imposing state, and when the crowds along the way saw how it gratified him to be hurrah'd at, they humored him to the top of his desire, and he responded with condescending bows and gracious smiles, and often stretched out a hand and said »Bless you, my people.«

As pitiful a sight as ever I saw. And Marget and old Ursula crying, all the way.

On my road home I came upon Satan, and reproached him for deceiving me with that lie. He was not embarrassed, but said, quite simply and composedly –

»Ah, you mistake – it was the truth. I said he would be happy the rest of his days, and he will. For he will always think he is the Emperor, and his pride in it and his joy in it will endure to the end. He is now, and will remain, the one utterly happy person in this Empire.«

»But the method of it, Satan, the method! Couldn't you have done it without depriving him of his reason?«

It was difficult to irritate Satan, but that accomplished it.

»What an ass you are!« he said. »Are you so unobservant as not to have found out that sanity and happiness are an impossible combination? No sane man can be happy, for to him life is real, and he sees what a fearful thing it is. Only the mad can be happy, and not many of those. The few that imagine themselves kings or gods are happy, the rest are no happier than the sane. Of course no man is entirely in his right mind at any time, but I have been referring to the extreme cases. I have taken from this man that trumpery thing which the race regards as a Mind; I have replaced his tin life with a silver-gilt fiction; you see the result – and you criticise! I said I would make him permanently happy, and I have done it. I have made him happy by the only means possible to his race – and you are not satisfied!« He heaved a discouraged sigh, and said, »It seems to me that this race is hard to please.«

There it was, you see. He didn't seem to know any way to do a person a favor except by killing him or making a lunatic out of him. I apologised, as well as I could; but privately I did not think much of his processes. At that time.

Satan was accustomed to say that our race lived a life of continuous and uninterrupted self-deception. It duped itself from cradle to grave with shams and delusions which it mistook for realities, and this made its entire life a sham. Of the score of fine qualities which it imagined it had, and was vain of, it really possessed hardly one. It regarded itself as gold, and was only brass. One day when he was in this vein, he mentioned a detail – the sense of humor. I cheered up, then, and took issue. I said we possessed it.

»There spoke the race!« he said; »always ready to claim what it hasn't got, and mistake its ounce of brass filings for a ton of gold dust. You have a bastard perception of humor, nothing more; a multitude of you possess that. This multitude see the comic side of a thousand low-grade and trivial things – broad incongruities, mainly; grotesqueries, absurdities, evokers of the horse-laugh. The ten thousand high-grade comicalities which exist in the world are sealed from their dull vision, they are unconscious of their presence. The ten thousand are hid from the entire race.«

By request he proceeded to name some of them.

»No religion exists which is not littered with engaging and delightful comicalities, but the race never perceives them. Nothing can be more deliciously comical than hereditary royalties and aristocracies, but none except royal families and aristocrats are aware of it.«

»Are they?«

»Oh, aren't they! Often they cannot sleep for laughing at their dependents. It would surprise you to know the names they privately call them by.«

»But republics and democracies see, don't they?«

»Oh, no – and never will. While they scoff with their mouths they reverence them in their hearts. That democrat will never live who will marry a democrat into his family when he can get a duke. All forms of government – including republican and democratic – are rich in funny shams and absurdities, but their supporters do not see it.«

It took him an hour to list a lot of the comicalities which the race is not capable of perceiving, then he left off. He said it would take him a month to name the rest.

Intercourse with him had colored my mind, of course, he being a strong personality and I a weak one; therefore I was inclined to think his position correct, but I did not say it. I only said our race was progressing, and that in time its sense of humor would develop to a point where it would enable us to perceive many things which we cannot see now.

But he only made fun of that idea, and said –

»The race had as much humor-perception when it was created as it has now, and it will never have any more. Look at the Pope's infallibility. Does any one see the humor of that? Not a soul, except the Pope and the Conclave. Look at his loosing-and-binding authority – which is not confined to earth, but which even God on His throne is obliged to submit to – as per the claim. Does any one see the humor of that? Not a soul outside the Vatican. Heretics rage about it, but no one laughs at it. Will a day come when the race will detect the funniness of these juvenilities and laugh at them – and by laughing at them destroy them? For your race, in its poverty, has unquestionably one really effective weapon – laughter. Power, Money, Persuasion, Supplication, Persecution – these can lift at a colossal humbug, – push it a little – crowd it a little – weaken it a little, century by century: but only Laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of Laughter nothing can stand. You are always fussing and fighting with your other weapons: do you ever use that one? No, you leave it lying rusting. As a race, do you ever use it at all? No – you lack sense and the courage. Once in an age a single hero lifts it, delivers his blow, and a hoary humbug goes to ruin. Before this century closes, Robert Burns, a peasant, will break the back of the Presbyterian Church with it, and set Scotland free. I ask you again: will a day come when the race will have so developed its humor-perception as to be able to detect the funniness of Papal Infallibility and God-subordinating Papal Authority?«

»I think so.«

»When?«

»Well, not in my time, maybe, but in a century, anyway.«

A newspaper flashed into his hand.

»Not in two centuries,« he said, »I will prove it. Two centuries from now, a king of Italy will be assassinated. He will be under excommunication at the time – that is to say, damned to perdition by the Pope; and whom the Pope damns, Heaven itself is impotent to save – as per the claim. Here is a journal which will issue from the press in those days; we may cull from it some historical facts in advance of their occurrence; details that are full of hideous humor, but in that day the race will be as unconscious of it as it would be to-day. In her grief the widowed Queen will compose a prayer. What will she do with it? Prostrate herself and pour it into the ear of God? No. Being a good Catholic, she will know the forms of holy etiquette better. She will submit it to a Bishop, in the hope that through his influence she may get permission to pray it, in case it shall be found to be a proper kind of prayer – and regular. Is that funny? Your race will not suspect it. The Bishop will inspect the prayer, dissect it, analyse it, submit it to an ecclesiastical fire-assay, and will decide that it is innocuous. He will then lay it before the Pope, together with his expert-report and the mourner's supplication for permission to pray it. Now it is not good form to intrude my uncle's acquired subjects upon the Deity's attention, and the Pope will know that; but being a kind-hearted old man he will waive etiquette for charity's sake, and ›by his express sanction‹ the widow will get leave to say her prayer – at last. This is an utter and thorough endorsement of the prayer by an authority whose judgments are infallible and whose verdicts cannot be set aside by any Power in heaven or earth. The Pope will carry his generosity still further: he will order fifty pulpits to pump that same prayer into heaven. Why? If it is bad form to allow one person to intrude a subject of Satan upon the Deity's attention, is it better form to set fifty at it? Will the people of that day see the grotesqueness of the situation? No, they will contemplate it with petrified gravity. Next, ›the French clerical press‹ will ›complain that the interests of the Church are compromised by this display of Christian spirit,‹ and the Pope's note will be ›abruptly changed.‹ The official organ of the Vatican will announce that the religious services for the dead King were ›tolerated,‹ but that the Queen's prayer must be suppressed as ›incompatible with the Holy Liturgy.‹ It will be considered ›impolitic‹ to show Christian gentleness to a sorrowing widow, and so ›the concession which was made to her‹ will be ›rudely withdrawn.‹ This is Papal ›infallibility.‹ Will the humor of it be perceived? No – not by the public. Meantime the prayer has been received in heaven from fifty-one sources – and recorded. The record will be meekly expunged – by order from below. Is that funny – or isn't it? I think it is; in fact I know it is; but none of your race will find it out. Why don't you laugh?«

I said I was too much hurt to laugh. I said our religion was our stay, our solace and our hope; it was the most precious thing we had, and I could not bear to hear its sacred servants derided.

I think it touched him; for he became gentle and kind at once, and set about banishing my trouble from my mind. It did not take him long – it never did. He flashed me around the globe, stopping an hour or a week, at intervals, in one or another strange country, and doing the whole journey in a few minutes by the clock, and I was in a condition of contentment before we had covered the first stage. Satan was always good and considerate, that way. He liked to rough a person up, but he liked to smooth him down again just as well.

We stopped at a little city in India and looked on while a juggler did his tricks before a group of natives. They were wonderful, but I knew Satan could beat that game, and I begged him to show off a little, and he said he would. He changed himself into a native, in turban and breech-clout, and very considerately conferred on me a temporary knowledge of the language.

The juggler exhibited a seed, covered it with earth in a small flower-pot, then put a rag over the pot; after a minute the rag began to rise; in ten minutes it had risen a foot; then the rag was removed and a little tree was exposed, which had leaves upon it and ripe fruit. We ate the fruit, and it was good. But Satan said –

»Why do you cover the pot? Can't you grow the tree in the sunlight?«

»No,« said the juggler; »no one can do that.«

»You are only an apprentice; you don't know your trade. Give me seed – I will show you.«

He took the seed, and said –

»What shall I raise from it?«

»It is a cherry seed; of course you will raise a cherry.«

»Oh, no – that is a trifle; any novice can do it. Shall I raise an orange tree from it?«

»Oh, yes!« and the juggler laughed.

»And shall I make it bear other fruits as well as oranges?«

»If God wills!« and they all laughed.

Satan put the seed on the ground, put a handful of dust on it, and said –

»Rise!«

A tiny stem shot up and began to grow; and grew so fast that in five minutes it was a great tree and we were sitting in the shade of it. There was a murmur of wonder, then all looked up and saw a strange and pretty sight; for the branches were heavy with fruits of many kinds and colors – oranges, grapes, bananas, peaches, cherries, apricots and so on. Baskets were brought, and the unlading of the tree began; and the people crowded around Satan and kissed his hand, and praised him, calling him the prince of jugglers. The news went about the town, and everybody came running to see the wonder – and they remembered to bring baskets, too. But the tree was equal to the occasion; it put out new fruits as fast as any were removed; baskets were filled by the score and by the hundred, but always the supply remained undiminished. At last a foreigner in white linen and sun-helmet arrived, and exclaimed angrily –

»Away from here! Clear out, you dogs; the tree is on my lands, and is my property.«

The natives put down their baskets and made humble obeisance. Satan made humble obeisance, too, with his fingers to his forehead, in the native way, and said –

»Please let them have their pleasure for an hour, sir – only that, and no longer. Afterward you may forbid them; and you will still have more fruit than you and the State together can consume in a year.«

This made the foreigner very angry, and he cried out –

»Who are you, you vagabond, to tell your betters what they may do and what they mayn't!« and he struck Satan with his cane and followed this error with a kick.

The fruits rotted on the branches, and the leaves withered and fell.

The foreigner gazed at the bare limbs with the look of one who is surprised, and not gratified. Satan said –

»Take good care of the tree, for its health and yours are bound up together. It will never bear again, but if you tend it well it will live long. Water its roots once in each hour every night – and do it yourself, it must not be done by proxy, and to do it in daylight will not answer. If you fail only once in any night, the tree will die, and you likewise. Do not go home to your own country any more – you would not reach there; make no business or pleasure engagements which require you to go outside your gate at night – you cannot afford the risk; do not rent or sell this place – it would be injudicious.«

The foreigner was proud, and wouldn't beg, but I thought he looked as if he would like to. While he stood gazing at Satan, we vanished away and landed in Ceylon.

I was sorry for that man; sorry Satan hadn't been his customary self and killed him. It would have been a mercy. Satan overheard the thought, and said –

»I would have done it, but for his wife, who has not offended me. She is coming to him presently from their native land, Portugal. She is well, but has not long to live, and has been yearning to see him and persuade him to go back with her next year. She will die without knowing he can't leave that place.«

»He wont tell her?«

»He? He will not trust that secret with any one; he will reflect that it could be revealed in sleep, in the hearing of some Portuguese guest's servant, some time or other.«

»Did none of those natives understand what you said to him?«

»None of them understood, but he will always be afraid that some of them did. That fear will be a torture to him; for he has been a harsh master to them. In his dreams he will imagine them chopping his tree down. That will make his days uncomfortable – I have already arranged for his nights.«

It grieved me, though not sharply, to see him take such a malicious satisfaction in his plans for this foreigner.

»Does he believe what you told him, Satan?«

»He thought he didn't, but our vanishing helped. The tree, where there had been no tree before – that helped. The insane and uncanny variety of fruits – the sudden withering – all these things are helps. Let him think as he may, reason as he may, one thing is certain – he will water the tree. But between this and night he will begin his changed career with a very natural precaution – for him.«

»What is that?«

»He will fetch a priest to cast out the tree's devil. You are such a humorous race – and don't suspect it.«

»Will he tell the priest?«

»No. He will say a juggler from Bombay created it, and that he wants the juggler's devil driven out of it, so that it will thrive and be fruitful again. The priest's incantations will fail; then the Portuguese will give up that scheme and get his watering-pot ready.«

»But the priest will burn the tree. I know it; he will not allow it to remain.«

»Yes, and anywhere in Europe he would burn the man, too. But in India the people are civilized, and these things will not happen. The man will drive the priest away and take care of the tree.«

I reflected a little, then said –

»Satan, you have given him a hard life, I think.«

»Comparatively. It must not be mistaken for a holiday.«

»What is the man doing now?«

»Sorrowing. Sorrowing, and getting ready for the night. He will sit with his clothes on and an alarm-clock at his elbow. Last night he slept in a bed for the last time in this life – at night, I mean.«

»Satan, it is horrible!«

»Comparatively. To-morrow he will lay in fifteen alarm-clocks; he will never trust his life to one, nor to half a dozen.«

»What will he tell his wife when she comes?«

»Several quite excusable lies.«

»Won't the alarm clocks disturb her, when they all go off at once?«

»Along at first, yes. They will make her jump out of bed. Eight times the first night. She will go and expostulate with her husband, and complain that her sleep is too periodical. He will explain – with lies – saying he is engaged in important scientific experiments; and he will plead with her to be patient with them and learn to love them, for his sake. And he will pet her and persuade her. But this cannot last for long.«

»No, I believe it.«

»The third day she will go and destroy the clocks while he is taking his sleep. He will be frightened nearly to death when he wakes and learns of his disaster; and she will be so moved by his distress that she will go and buy a new outfit of clocks herself, and will let him have his way after that.«

»But she will pine away with loss of sleep, and die, Satan.«

»No, she will accommodate her life to the new circumstances. She will sleep in the daytime, and sit up with him, nights. She will thus have his society and be quite content. She will never quite get the hang of his experiments, but he will make her believe that in time they will restore the tree, and make it the marvel and wonder it was at first, and people will cross the ocean to see it. Then she will be interested, and will offer to do the watering herself, but will be excused.«

»Poor thing!«

»No, not she. She will be happy, and proud of her scientific husband, and hopefully expectant of his success until her latest day – and that is not far off.«

»God keep her in ignorance!«

»Her husband will assist.«

Chapter 11

My appetite was not satisfied, it was only sharpened; I wanted to see Satan show off some more. It was a delight to me to see him astonish people; it was a private pride to me, too, and pleased my vanity, for I was envied, as being friend and comrade to so great a magician. Satan was willing to content my desire, and said there was an opportunity now, up in the hills not twenty miles away, in the palace of a native of wealth and high degree. We were there in a moment, Satan properly clothed for the occasion in silks of rich color loosely draped about his slender black figure, and on his head a handsome turban with gold stripes winding in and out among its folds. He had made his age about twenty-five. On a dais at the end of a noble hall sat the host, a blaze of gaudy silks and flashing jewels, and in front of him on oriental rugs sat forty or fifty natives in fine apparel. A magician of great renown was about to perform.

He held up a small ivory ball, so that all might see it, then gave it to a young man and told him to carry it away and hide it. The young man departed, and returned after a little time. The magician now tied a bandage over his eyes, and said he would go and find the ball. He felt his way along, with a cane, and many witnesses followed, to see if he succeeded. He wandered here and there and yonder about the great garden, not hesitating but moving with confidence, and at last he bent quickly down and apparently took the ball out from under a covering of loose moss and leaves at the root of a tree, and held it up. He and the witnesses came back and reported to the Rajah, who marveled greatly, and ordered a present of twenty gold mohurs to be given to the miracle-worker. Then Satan made a deep obeisance toward the chair of state, and said –

»I am also a magician, your Highness, and by my science I am able to perceive that this is not a wonderful thing. The young man who professed to hide the ball is the magician's confederate. He hid no ball; the magician found no ball. The confederate's ball is in his girdle, the magician's ball lies in his hand. With a confederate's help, this trick is nothing.«

The magician loudly protested, and said he was not acquainted with the young man who had assisted him, and did not know he had a ball; and in any case the young man's ball had not been used. Satan asked –

»Could you tell your ball from the other if they were together?«

»Certainly.«

»If your Highness will deign to give the command –«

His Highness ordered that the two balls be brought to him. He rolled them about in his hands, then held them exposed in his palm. The magician made choice promptly, saying –

»This is mine; I recognise it easily. To others they may seem alike – to me they are not so.«

The Rajah wondered at his sharpness of eye, and said it was amazing. He supposed the incident closed, and was going to order some more gold mohurs, but Satan interrupted respectfully and asked the magician –

»Is your ball hollow, and is there something concealed in it?«

»Certainly not.«

»Then that is not his ball, your Highness. Will your Highness be pleased to take it and unscrew its parts?«

»What is in it?«

»A diamond, your Highness.«